Former Australia batter Mark Waugh reacted to Virat Kohli’s 186-run knock in the fourth and final Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Ahmedabad. It was Kohli’s 28th Test ton and his 75th one overall.
Virat Kohli ended his over three-year wait for a Test century on Sunday, scoring a masterful 186 off 364 balls in the fourth Test against Australia. The match ended in a draw on Monday, thus securing a 2-1 win for India in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and a place in the World Test Championship final, which was confirmed even before Tea on Day 4 after Sri Lanka lost to New Zealand in the thrilling first Test between the two sides.
The century was Kohli’s 75th in international cricket and his 28th in Tests. His last ton in the longest format of the game had come in November 2019 against Bangladesh at the Eden Gardens in what was India’s first-ever pink-ball Test. With the ton, Kohli finished the series as India’s top scorer, jumping past Axar Patel and captain Rohit Sharma.
Former Australia opener Mark Waugh said on Fox Cricket that Kohli seemed set to score a century right from the time he walked out to bat on Day 3. Kohli had to see off a tricky last over of the second session from Nathan Lyon on Saturday with Cheteshwar Pujara right at the stroke of Tea.
“The drought’s over. The gates have opened,” said Waugh. “You could tell right from the get-go he meant business. He played very few risky shots. He was so patient, just picked the bowling off.”
Waugh, who had caused a flutter when he heavily criticised Kohli for his slip catching technique while being part of the commentary team in the series for the first two Tests, said that he feels Kohli is not back to the kind of level he was at when he was at his peak before 2019 and yet he performed this well.
“I don’t think he’s at his pure best at the moment, as far as his Test career is concerned … but it just shows you his class,” he said. Kohli was awarded player of the match for the knock. He said that he was happy to have done what the team needed him to do but he was not keen on proving anything by ending the century drought.
“The expectations that I have for myself as a player are more important to me. I think in Test cricket I wasn’t able to play with my tempo and template that I have played with for the last 10 years for a while now. So that was the one thing I was trying to do. I felt like I was batting really well from the first innings in Nagpur.
But we focussed more on batting as long as possible for the team. I did that for periods but not to the capability that I have done in the past.
From that perspective I was disappointed but there was belief there that I was playing well and if I got an opportunity on a decent wicket then I can make a big one,” Kohli said in the presentation ceremony.
Before the Border Gavaskar Trophy got underway, the Virat Kohli question was on every lip. Even after his outings in the limited-overs format, the lack of runs in Tests was still considered the real deal.
The barren patch got longer with the away series against Bangladesh and the home series vs Australia presented Kohli an opportunity to find the missing piece to his own puzzle. That of a century in T20I, a stellar T20 World Cup and then the consistency in ODIs
From the practice sessions, there was no dearth of intent from India’s prolific right-hander. He would take guard well before his teammates had finished warming up and didn’t vacate the nets before the entire training gear was soaked in sweat.
There were attempts to simulate match situation by creating the extra rough on practice surfaces, facing bowlers who create angles similar to Australian attack, continue showing the hunger to succeed and hope the hours in the nets translate into runs in the middle.
If Nagpur would have woken him up, he gave a stern reminder of his abilities during the masterful 44 in the Delhi Test. The energy seemed infectious after that game and he was at it ahead of the Indore Test.
Sublime footwork, big hits against spin and a solid defence – all was on display over the two days he trained on the practice wickets but Indore came ‘out of syllabus’ for most batters. A minefield was rolled out and Kohli, like most, couldn’t get the big digits.
If he was trapped while defending off the front-foot in the first innings, where he did look solid, in the second it was the dangerous attempt to pull Matthew Kuhnemann on a surface where balls were scooting low.
Three games without a big score but Kohli was getting there. He was looking very good in patches and the slightly open stance allowed him to smother the off-spinners towards the leg-side. And he clearly mastered that shot this series and enjoyed a lot of control and success with it.
Ahmedabad rolled out a very true and batting-friendly surface and the way Australia batted in the first innings, there were runs in store for the India batters too.
Shubman Gill scored, Rohit Sharma and Cheteshwar Pujara got starts but the next name on the scoresheet was the one everyone was interested in.
The 1205-day wait ended, the helmet finally came off and Kohli got the “600kg gorilla” off his back. His return to form was complete with authority and a daddy hundred. He would go on to say that there’s nothing to “prove someone wrong” but this was one such moment where one wouldn’t mind being proven wrong.