India skipper Rohit Sharma caught Anushka Sharma's “lie” about Virat Kohli following the Bollywood starlet's “false” claim about her husband.
After Virat Kohli played a majestic knock of 186 in the fourth Test against Australia over the weekend, Anushka Sharma posted an Instagram story in which she mentioned that her husband, Virat Kohli, was suffering from an illness.
“Playing through sickness with his composure. Inspiring me always,” Anushka Sharma wrote on social media.
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.
Though Virat Kohli looked absolutely fit while batting and running between the wickets during his stupendous knock, Anushka Sharma's claim baffled many, including Axar Patel who spent a considerable time with him in the middle.
In fact, Axar Patel was involved in a century stand with the former India captain.
“I don't know (if Kohli was not keeping well). The way he was running, it didn't look like he was sick with the way he built that partnership, in this heat and the way he ran… It was good to have that stand with him,” Axar Patel said after the close of play on Day 4.
After Axar Patel, even India captain Rohit Sharma rubbished Anushka Sharma's claim, saying that Kohli was coughing a bit, but he was definitely not ill.
“Don't believe what you see on social media. Don't think Virat was sick, just that he was coughing a bit,” Rohit Sharma said in the post-match media briefing.
Surprisingly, Virat Kohli, known to display his love for Anushka Sharma publicly, didn't come out in her defense either.
He neither spoke about the matter at the post-match presentation ceremony where he picked up the Man of the Match award nor gave an update in his video interview with head coach Rahul Dravid.
But the one thing he did reveal was that he was desperate to score a hundred in Test cricket again because he wanted to get the monkey off his back.
“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 did 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 elaborated.
“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 concluded.
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