116, ADELAIDE, 2012

Virat Kohli came in Australia with a huge reputation of a bad boy behind him. During the Test series as the senior players of the Indian team were exposed for weakened reflexes against Australia pace battery and Virat emerged as the new hope of the Indian batting.

Though he had scored only a fifty before the fourth and last Test of the series began in Adelaide; Kohli was going to become a name to fear down under. India had already lost the first three Tests of the series and it was only going to get worse for India. No Indian had scored a century leading upto this Test in the series and given the way Australia played, it wasn’t looking like anyone was going to.

Australia put up 604/7d thanks to 221 from Ricky Ponting and 210 from Michael Clarke. In the Indian innings, Virat Kohli proved to be the lone warrior with a magnificent 116 off 213 balls with 11 fours and 1 six. The next highest score was 35 by keeper Saha and 34 by captain Virender Sehwag.

The innings reminded everyone of Sachin’s effort in Sydney in 1992, as Kohli took on the best of the Australian attack and scored a memorable century, his first in Australia.