Virat Kohli Smashes Green For Consecutive Boundaries To Get To 150 In Style:In reply to Australia‘s 490, India were able to take a significant lead of 91 runs in the ongoing 4th Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test, in Ahmedabad, courtest of terrific centuries from Shubman Gill and Virat Kohli.
While this was Gill’s second Test century, standing on the other end of his career is Virat Kohli, who hit his 28th Test ton – after a drought of over 3 years and 3 months in Tests – and his 75th in international cricket.
Gill scored 128 while Kohli scored 186; Kohli, unfortunately, couldn’t get to his double hundred as he got out trying to hit a six with the field spread out and Mohammed Shami at the other end. Nonetheless, this was a great innings, not least in the context of the match, which India can’t afford to lose because the WTC final is on the line, and it also meant India have outbatted Australia out of the match.
The hallmark of Virat Kohli’s first hundred runs was his abstinence of playing cover drives to off-spinners Nathan Lyon and Todd Murphy. To both the off-spinners, Kohli played mostly with the turn on the leg-side, lest he’d edge it to the men waiting for catches.
But, Virat Kohli, and all Indian batters duly pounced on the two Australian seamers – Mitchell Starc and Cameron Green, both of whom were hit for several boundaries: Green conceded at 5 runs an over and Starc leaked at 4.4 runs per over.
After Kohli had reached his century, he played shots more freely and in particular to the Aussie quicks.
He brought up his 150 with two stylish shots off Cameron Green, one of the offside after coming down the track and lacing an easy cover drive; on the next ball, he again stepped down the pitch, but this time flicked it on the leg-side, driveing it wide of mid-wicket for a boundary.
Watch: Virat Kohli brings up his 150 in style with consecutive boundaries
Kohli formed 4 important partnerships in his marathon innings: 58 with Shubman Gill, 64 with Jadeja, 84 with Bharat, and 162 with Axar. After Gill’s century on Day 3, it was Kohli’s time to bring up a brilliant century.
This was after Rohit had had an opening stand of 74 with Gill, who then shared a 113-run stand with Pujara before Kohli took over the mantle.
