Virat Kohli's 186 against Australia in the final match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Ahmedabad was reminiscent of the player that made the cricketing world fall in love with all those years back. He played like a player with the weight of captaincy off his back as he ended his 1204-day-long Test century drought which stretched back to November 2019.
After the match, the star batter spoke to his head coach Rahul Dravid for BCCI TV and explained how worked on himself and fought the demons in his head. "Honestly, I've let the complications grow on me a bit because of my shortcomings," Kohli told Dravid in the chat, the video of which was posted by the BCCI on its website.
"The desperation to get to the three-figure mark is something that can grow on you as a batter. I let that happen to me to a certain extent. But a flip side to it is, I'm not a guy who is happy with 40-45. I take a lot of pride in performing for the team.
"It's not like when Virat Kohli should stand out. When I'm batting on 40, I know I can get a 150. That was eating me up a lot. Why am I not able to get that big score for the team? Because I took pride in the fact that when the team needed me, I stood up, scoring in difficult conditions. The fact that I wasn't able to do that, was bothering me," he added.
The 34-year-old was asked by Dravid about how he tackled this tough, dry period in his career, to which Kohli replied, "If I've to be brutally honest, it does become a little difficult as the moment you step out of the hotel room, right from the guy outside, to the guy in the lift, the bus driver everyone is saying 'we want a hundred'. So, it does play on your mind all the time but that's also the beauty of playing for so long to have these complications come up and overcome these challenges."
The former India skipper dished out an uncharacteristic 364-ball innings, spanning more than eight hours and 30 minutes. It was his 75th international century across formats. Kohli credited his fitness to being able to bat in different ways which help him excel in all formats.
"I can bat four sessions, I can bat five sessions, that’s where the fitness and physical preparation comes into play for me. I go into the field relaxed because I know I can bat in many ways. I am not desperate if I play three sessions and feel like I am breaking down and I need to get fast runs otherwise I won’t be able to stay out there for long," he said.
".... I am pretty happy scoring 30 runs in a session and not hitting a boundary and absolutely not being desperate because I know that boundaries will come and even if I have to play like this I can bat six sessions and get a 150. I have no issue doing that," he concluded.
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(With PTI Inputs)
