New Delhi: After the first 13 innings of his career, Virat Kohli scored his first Test century on 24 January 2012 in Adelaide. After this he never looked back. In the next seven years i.e. till 22 November 2019, he scored 26 more centuries. It seemed that the harder it was for a batsman to score his first Test hundred, the easier it was to score the century that followed. But now for the last 41 innings, not a single Test century has come out of Kohli’s bat. Considered to be the best batsman of the current era, whether in the country or abroad, a Test century now seems like a dream for Kohli.
If the drought of the first 13 innings and the drought of the last 41 innings are added, then there is a phase of 54 innings where Kohli did not score a single century. Till the Indore Test, Kohli has played 182 innings in his career and has scored 27 centuries during this period. That is, out of 182 innings, 54 innings (those two phases where centuries were not scored) are removed, then a total of 27 centuries in 128 innings. This was the period, which can be called the era of Kohli’s supremacy. Usually after every 5th innings, a Test century was coming out of Kohli’s bat and now the situation is that there is not even a single Test century in 41 innings. And that’s the disappointing thing.
Here Kohli is not being compared with the rest of the Fab Four batsmen (Joe Root, Kane Williamson and Steven Smith) but with the same Kohli whose stature is so huge in cricket. Yes, it is true that even in white ball cricket, Kohli yearned for a century for the last few years. But last year, during the Asia Cup, he scored his first T20I century, then in ODI cricket, he also scored 3 centuries in 4 innings.
Everyone realized that Kohli has managed to find the old Virat again, but that Virat is still missing in Test cricket. The Ahmedabad Test is going to be the most pressing match of Kohli’s career personally as his long drought of centuries in Test cricket does not match his impeccable image.
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