Virat Kohli finally brought the cricketing world to a standstill and made them witness his greatness with the bat on Sunday afternoon. The right-hander played an impactful knock of 100* off 143 balls to end his 16-month century drought in the longest format. Previously, he scored a ton against West Indies in July 2023.
In the first innings, Kohli was set up beautifully by Josh Hazlewood with his back-of-length deliveries. He induced an edge of the 36-year-old and sent him packing for 5.
Much was expected from Kohli in the second innings, after the opening pair of KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal stitched a 201-run opening stand to put India on the frontfoot. With a perfect platform to get back to his former self, Kohli looked well settled in the crease with his brilliant footwork and confident stride.
As a result, the veteran batter was impressive to play with a straight bat to most of the deliveries and sending the balls to the covers and straight boundaries. At the stroke of lunch, he was looking sharp, while being unbeaten at 40* and helping the Indian team to secure a lead of 400+ runs.
Virat Kohli sets tone for rest of the BGT series
In the third session, Virat Kohli looked to continue his momentum and rotated the strikes quite well. After Washington Sundar departed for 29, Nitish Kumar Reddy arrived at the crease with a positive intent.
Reddy slammed consistent boundaries to steer the team at a lavish rate, while Kohli fed off the confidence from a well-built momentum. In their pursuit of declaring the innings, Kohli received a signal from the dugout to aim for a century.
The 36-year-old hit a beautiful six towards the straight boundary against Nathan Lyon and took out a couple of boundaries off Marnus Labuschagne. He reached the three-figure mark with a sweep shot, that went for a four towards the deep fine leg region. The visitors declared on 487/6, and set up a target of 534 for Australia. Reddy also impressed with a 27-ball 38-run knock.
Kohli was overjoyed with his 30th test century and turned his head towards his emotional wife Anushka Sharma on the way back to the dressing room. He now has the most (7) hundreds by an Asian in Australia, surpassing Sachin Tendulkar’s tally of six.
At the end of day’s play, Australia are at 12/3 in their chase of 534. The road will be tough for the Australians, as they will look to save the game in the first session of Day 4.
