Many people who have seen Virat Kohli bat live share a similar experience. It begins with his entry, which is delivered with all the ferocity of a frantic WhatsApp group chat that has emerged from airplane mode. Kohli would swing his bat across his waist as he walked toward the boundary line. He would sprint across large swaths of grass toward the pitch after getting past the advertising cushions and breaking into a spot jog. The bat is now rotating like a windmill over the shoulder joints as the hands loosen as they get closer. The right arm follows the left. The shadow shots followed, almost always with the forward defense playing twice with the head on top of the fictitious ball. Following that, a conversation and glove tap with the companion.
Kohli's batting is both visually and audibly impressive. The exact back and across trigger, the break of the bat, the thunder of the group and the ball whistling through the in-field. It is easy to get lost in the sudden crackle of electricity in the stadium and fail to notice that Kohli was already batting on 30, as Steve Waugh once described the disorienting start of a Sachin Tendulkar innings in India.
His 28th Test century in Ahmedabad, which ended the drought, was quite different for those who were familiar with this Kohli experience. When DRS was about to dismiss Cheteshwar Pujara, there was a cheer that was almost disrespectful, but the rest of the game went very differently. From the more sluggish, rolling walk to the crease, the high-fives with centurion and batting partner Shubman Gill, and the welcome conversation with close-in fielder Peter Handscomb, everything went smoothly.
Perhaps it was because Kohli had camped at the dugout for nearly two sessions on a hot day rather than having to walk down those 96 stairs from the dressing room with the pads on because the tea break was only six balls away. However, that WhatsApp group appeared to have been silenced for approximately three years and three months.
Beginning energy gave way to anxious strain in the uber arena three balls to the span when he extended forward and poked at a Nathan Lyon ball just for it fly uppishly off within edge near the short-leg defender. Lyon beat Kohli on the outside edge with his next ball, and with his next one, he found the edge but it didn't have the legs to go full to first slip. This resulted in three incorrect responses to the first four balls on a relatively smooth surface.
He might not have made it through those three deliveries on another day, which would have raised concerns about his defense against spin, which statistics indicate has been a recent issue for him. That day didn't come today.
Presently, there can be an inclination to dig into the details of 100 that came after a hole of 41 Test innings, particularly one that saw him slither to nine runs off his initial 37 conveyances and afterward go one more 122 balls without scoring a limit on Sunday morning. However, batters at the Test level constantly make small adjustments to their strategies.
It should be noted that after a series of LBW errors while batting on leg stump, he switched to middle position, keeping his stance open and his back leg almost in line with the off stump. Hitting against the turn through the covers is risky because off-spinners frequently bowl around the stumps in this series, frequently against a 7-2 leg-side field. What's more, that is implied Kohli has totally placed the cover on his off-side game. Instead, he moves forward to whip fuller balls toward a straight midwicket legside air and immediately returns to tuck shorter balls off the hip. Kohli became less fluid but more in charge as a result.
However, for the majority of this series, he has batted just as well and calmly against spin without scoring anything of substance. Rahul Dravid, who stated that there was a sense of calm in the dressing room when Kohli batted, attested that Kohli's 44 in Delhi on a turning track was as fine a knock as any.
The difference can be traced back to the pitches themselves. This was Kohli, the gamble disinclined collector and not Kohli the tubthumping determined worker of Test hundreds. When Kohli was at his best, a hundred seemed inevitable, even a rush, like the innings were being played to the beat of an electric guitar solo. A string quartet performance was more calming than this one.
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