Virat Kohli Opens Up On Lean Phase In Test Cricket, Says ‘I Wasn’t Able To Play…’

Ahmedabad: Indian star batter Virat Kohli, who ended his century drought in Tests with a patient 186 against Australia here, on Monday said he’s not in a “space where I will go out and prove someone wrong”.

Kohli endured a painful wait of more than three years to notch his Test century number 28, the knock helping India finish with 571 in reply to Australia’s 480 in the drawn fourth and final game.

“The expectations that I have for myself as a player are more important to me,” Kohli told the official broadcasters after being adjudged Player of the Match.

“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,” Kohli, who now has 75 international centuries, said.

“I think in Test cricket I wasn’t able to play with my tempo and template that I have played with for the last 10 years for awhile now. So that was the one thing I was trying to do. I felt like I was batting really well from the first innings in Nagpur.”

Kohli admitted he was not in his own in the Test format so he had to apply himself harder. Kohli faced 364 balls in his knock of 186 and scored only 60 runs in boundaries. It was a deliberate ploy as India had a batter short in their XI after Shreyas Iyer pulled out because of a back injury.

“We lost Shreyas to injury and were a batter short. So, we decided to play time. We focused on batting long. We focussed more on batting as long as possible for the team. I did that for periods but not to the capability that I have done in the past.

“From that perspective I was disappointed but there was belief there that I was playing well and if I got an opportunity on a decent wicket then I can make a big one,” he concluded.