Ahmedabad: Before the Border Gavaskar Trophy got underway, the Virat Kohli question was on every lip. Even after his outings in the limited-overs format, the lack of runs in Tests was still considered the real deal. The barren patch got longer with the away series against Bangladesh and the home series vs Australia presented Kohli an opportunity to find the missing piece to his own puzzle. That of a century in T20I, a stellar T20 World Cup and then the consistency in ODIs.
From the practice sessions, there was no dearth of intent from India’s prolific right-hander. He would take guard well before his teammates had finished warming up and didn’t vacate the nets before the entire training gear was soaked in sweat. There were attempts to simulate match situation by creating the extra rough on practice surfaces, facing bowlers who create angles similar to Australian attack, continue showing the hunger to succeed and hope the hours in the nets translate into runs in the middle.
If Nagpur would have woken him up, he gave a stern reminder of his abilities during the masterful 44 in the Delhi Test. The energy seemed infectious after that game and he was at it ahead of the Indore Test. Sublime footwork, big hits against spin and a solid defence – all was on display over the two days he trained on the practice wickets but Indore came ‘out of syllabus’ for most batters. A minefield was rolled out and Kohli, like most, couldn’t get the big digits. If he was trapped while defending off the front-foot in the first innings, where he did look solid, in the second it was the dangerous attempt to pull Matthew Kuhnemann on a surface where balls were scooting low.
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“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,” Virat Kohli said in an interaction with the host broadcaster after getting the Player of the Match award for his gritty 186.
Kohli would add that the expectations he has from himself matter the most to him but runs instil a lot of confidence and inject a lot of positive energy in the change room. The former India captain was disappointed to not bat long in the previous fixtures and had a “relief” of sorts to play the way he did.
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