India talisman Virat Kohli struck his 75th international century in the fourth Test against Australia in Ahmedabad over the weekend. Following his record-setting ton, a fan posted a tweet explaining the main reason behind his exploits at the Narendra Modi Stadium, which went viral on the microblogging platform.
According to this ardent Virat Kohli supporter, the 34-year-old cricketer's hundred against the Kangaroos was a blessing from Lord Shiva, whose revered shrine he had visited in Ujjain recently.
At the start of March, Virat Kohli and his wife Anushka Sharma performed prayers at the Mahakaleshwar Jyotirlinga after India suffered a humiliating defeat to the Steve Smith-led side in the third Test held in Indore.
Notably, Virat Kohli's last three tons came after he visited a major Hindu pilgrimage site, including Ashrams in Uttarakhand and Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh. His admirer, argued that Kohli's move towards spirituality was the defining factor in his batting renaissance.
Virat Kohli visited Kainchi Dham before his 73rd Century
Vrindavan before 74th Century
Mahakaleshwar before 75th Century
By the time he reaches his 100th century, he will have visited more temples than my parents
— Sagar (@sagarcasm) March 12, 2023
On Sunday, the premier India batter broke a series of records en route to his 28th Test century against Australia in the fourth Test in Ahmedabad.
Among the multiple feats Virat Kohli achieved in Ahmedabad was becoming the quickest to complete 11,000 international runs at home.
Virat Kohli also matched former India captain Sunil Gavaskar's landmark the legendary batsman achieved four decades ago.
Virat Kohli was playing in his 50th Test on home soil, and he celebrated the occasion with a hundred. In 1983, Sunil Gavaskar made a century when he featured in his 50th Test match in Indian conditions against West Indies at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi.
The ton against Australia in Ahmedabad was his 8th hundred in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, joint-second most by any batter from the two countries. While Sachin Tendulkar has nine centuries, Ricky Ponting and Steve Smith have scored eight centuries each.
It was Virat Kohli's first Test hundred since November 2019, thus ending a 1,204 days wait for a century in the five-day format of the sport.
Moreover, it was his first century in red-ball cricket after 41 innings – his longest drought in Test matches. During this phase, Virat Kohli went without a ton in 23 games.
It was also his second Test hundred against Australia at home, following his 107 in Chennai in 2013.
Throughout his knock, Virat Kohli looked in complete command – at the start of his innings, the 34-year-old was solid in defense and milked the Australian bowlers for ones and twos.
Virat Kohli, known for his aggressive brand of cricket in white-ball cricket, turned into a grinder as the Delhi-born cricketer struck only five boundaries during his first hundred runs at the Narendra Modi Stadium.
After bringing up his 75th century in Gujarat during the weekend, he raised the level of his game and was looking good for a double-hundred. But Kohli lost his wicket while attempting an attacking shot off Todd Murphy.
Virat Kohli was the last Indian batter to get out for a score of 186, with the hosts putting 571/9 on the board. Shreyas Iyer didn't bat in India's first innings due to back spasms and underwent scans in the hospital.
Meanwhile, Virat Kohli revealed that he was anxious to get the monkey off his back during his lean phase with the bat in the whites, something he reckons led to the wait for a Test hundred getting longer than expected.
“To be honest, I've led the complications to grow on me a little bit because of my own shortcomings. I think the desperation to get the 3-figure mark is something that can grow on you as a batsman. We've all experienced that at some stage or the other. I think I led that happen to me to a certain extent,” Virat Kohli told head coach Rahul Dravid in a BCCI video.
“But also the flip side to it is that I am not a guy who is happy with 40 or 45 runs. I am someone who always takes pride in performing for the team. It's not like Virat Kohli should stand out. When I am batting on 40, I know I can get a 150 here and that will help my team. That was eating me up a lot. Why am I not able to get that big score for the team because I always took the pride in performing for the team when it needed me, in difficult conditions and difficult situations,” he added.
“The fact that I wasn't able to do that was bother me. Not so much the milestone as such as I don't play for it. A lot of people ask me this question, ‘how do you keep scoring a hundred?'. I always told them, a hundred is something that happens along the way within my goal which is to bat as long as possible for the team and get as many runs as possible. So, the milestone is never my focus. But yes, I have to be brutally honest, i does become a little complicated because the moment you step out of the hotel room, right from the guy outside the room to the guy in the lift to the bus driver, everyone is saying we want a hundred. So, it's like, it does play on your mind,” Virat Kohli asserted.
“But I think that's the beauty of playing so long as well, to have these complications come and over come these challenges. When it comes together, like it did in this game, that gives you an extra gust of air to go beyond, go further and start enjoying cricket a lot more and be excited for what's to come. I am just happy that it happened at the right time, before the World Test Championship final. I will definitely be going there pretty relaxed,” he elaborated.
On the other hand, head coach Rahul Dravid compared the expectations that the people of India have for Virat Kohli with the weight of expectations on Sachin Tendulkar's shoulders when the Little Master was playing.
“In India when you become a player as big as Virat Kohli, people have such high expectations. When I played and used to bat with Sachin Tendulkar, I saw the same. Everyone wants him to score a century, score runs. And this happens because he has set a standard. He has scored centuries so regularly that people don't realise how tough it is to score a hundred. And then obviously, the pressure builds,” Rahul Dravid told Star Sports.
“A player of Kohli's calibre wants to contribute, stay involved. He looks at it in a way ‘How can I contribute? What can I do to win the match for India?' And somewhere he must have felt that I am not able to give that world-class performance in Test matches which the team has become habitual of,” he pointed out.
“If young kids are watching – we keep talking and sometimes as coach, we get frustrated too – I hear a lot that ‘this is my style and I'm only going to play like this'. In this match a big player has shown that if the situation is tough and the team is slightly on the defensive, the opposition is not giving you boundaries, you can play differently and still score a century for the team.”
“He scored just five fours in his first 100 runs. He could have gotten frustrated – felt I will smash, dominate – but he knew what the team needed in that situation. This is a special trait of a big player. Doesn't matter how great a player you are, you need to have humility, the will to,” Rahul Dravid concluded.
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