Virat Kohli said that he is relieved by the way he batted in the India first innings of the fourth Test against Australia in Ahmedabad, which ended in a draw with the hosts winning the series 2-1. With this, they won the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the fourth time in a row.
Kohli, who had been struggling in Test cricket to put up big scores on the board, hit his first half-century in over a year and then finally reached the triple-figure mark, which had eluded him for 1205 days since his last Test ton came in November 2019.
The former India captain continued on and scored 186 and added valuable partnerships with Shubman Gill (128), Cheteshwar Pujara (42), KS Bharat (44), and Akshar Patel (79), as India posted 571 in reply to Australia’s 480.
However, the match ended in a draw on day five, but everyone was happy with the way Virat Kohli batted in the match, as he controlled himself and didn’t play the shots that had gotten him out previously.
He played 364 balls and hit 15 fours in his knock and was named the Player of the Match for the same as he helped India gain a 91-run lead going into Australia’s second innings.
“To be honest, the expectations I have from myself as a player is more to important to me. I felt I was batting well from the first innings at Nagpur. We focused on batting for long. I did that to an extent but not to the capability that I have done in the past. Was a little disappointed for that,” Kohli said at the post-match presentation.
Kohli further explained how the team’s batting strategy changed following Shreyas Iyer’s injury.
“Relief from the point of view that I could play the way I wanted to play. I was happy with my defence. I am not in a space now where I will go out and prove someone wrong. I also need to justify why I am there on the field. When I was 60 not out, we decided to play positively. But we lost Shreyas to injury and were a batter short. So, we decided to play time. They were good with the ball and placed some good fields. We got a bit of a lead and gave ourselves some sort of a chance,” he added.
Virat Kohli will be in action as India and Australia clash in a three-ODI series starting from March 17 in Mumbai.
(Star Sports/Firstpost inputs)
