IND vs AUS: It never seemed like Virat Kohli was out of form, says Sunil Gavaskar after century in Ahmedabad

Legendary India batter Sunil Gavaskar has said that it never seemed like former India captain Virat Kohli was out of form after he scored a century against Australia.

Kohli scored 186 in India’s first innings in the final Test of the four-match Border-Gavaskar series at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.

Speaking with Star Sports at the end of Day 4, Gavaskar said that it never seemed like Kohli was out of form but was just getting out on his first mistake. Kohli scored 186 runs in 364 balls as India put up 571 runs on the board.

“Every great batter thinks about a hundred. A century is the minimum price he keeps for his wicket. The way Kohli was batting in the last two-and-a-half years when he didn’t score a century, he was batting well, scored seven or eight fifties. So it never seemed that he was out of form. The only thing that was happening was that he was getting out on his first mistake,” said Gavaskar.

He went on to say that this is how a Test match century should be constructed. Kohli started off slowly and absorbed the pressure early on Day 4, before going on to complete his 75th international century.

“It was like how a Test match century should be constructed. He started slightly slowly, where he was trying to figure out the pitch and the bowling. Then he played a few shots after getting set and tried to play even more shots after he had scored a century. It shows how determined he was,” Gavaskar added.

Gavaskar said Kohli had seen the likes of Usman Khawaja, Cameron Green and SHubman Gill score hundreds, and knew that it was a good opportunity for him to play a big knock.

“He knew that India were quite far behind Australia, who had scored a mountain of runs. He had seen that Usman Khawaja played a 180-run knock and Cameron Green scored a century for Australia, and Shubman Gill played a 128-run knock. This was a good opportunity for him to play a big knock so that the Indian team reaches close to 480,” said Gavaskar.

Kohli scored his 28th Test century as India ended their innings at 571, leading Australia by 91 runs. Travis Head and Matthew Kunhemann came out to bat for Australia at the end of Day 4. The hosts ended the day at 3/0, and trail India by 88 runs.