After a gap of over 1200 days, Virat Kohli reached the triple-digit score in Tests, scoring 186 runs for India in the first innings of the Ahmedabad Test against Australia. The biggest chunk of the last three years wasn’t the most pleasant in Kohli’s career, with the batsman struggling to score big runs in all three formats of the game. However, Kohli’s will to bounce back paid off and in a matter of months he has multiple centuries in all three formats of the game. However, joining India’s head coach Rahul Dravid for a chat after the conclusion of the Ahmedabad Test, Kohli was asked if the century drought in Tests was ‘hard’ for him. The batter gave a ‘brutally honest’ response.
In a video shared by BCCI.TV, Dravid asked Kohli if it was ‘hard’ for him to not have scored a Test century for such a long period.
In response, Virat said: “To be honest, I’ve led the complications to grow on me a little bit because of my own shortcomings. I think the desperation to get the 3-figure mark is something that can grow on you as a batsman. We’ve all experienced that at some stage or the other. I think I led that happen to me to a certain extent.”
“But also the flip side to it is that I am not a guy who is happy with 40 or 45 runs. I am someone who always takes pride in performing for the team. It’s not like Virat Kohli should stand out. When I am batting on 40, I know I can get a 150 here and that will help my team. That was eating me up a lot. Why am I not able to get that big score for the team because I always took the pride in performing for the team when it needed me, in difficult conditions and difficult situations,” he added.
A conversation full of calmness, respect & inspiration written all over it!
A special post series – win chat with #TeamIndia Head Coach Rahul Dravid & @imVkohli at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad – By @RajalArora
FULL INTERVIEW #INDvAUS pic.twitter.com/iHU1jZ1CKG
— BCCI (@BCCI) Mar 14, 2023
Kohli then gave a ‘brutally honest’ explanation and said that it wasn’t the fact that he was not able to score a hundred that bothered him but the case where he couldn’t help the team with the bat as much as he had been .
“The fact that I wasn’t able to do that was bothering me. Not so much the milestone as such as I don’t play for it. A lot of people ask me this question, ‘how do you keep scoring a hundred? ‘. I always told them, a hundred is something that happens along the way within my goal which is to bat as long as possible for the team and get as many runs as possible. So, the milestone is never my focus. But yes, I have to be brutally honest, it does become a little complicated because the moment you step out of the hotel room, right from the guy outside the room to the guy in the elevator to the bus driver, everyone is saying we want a hundred. So, it’s like, it does play on your mind,” he asserted.
Towards the end of the chat, the 34-year-old said that he is happy to have gotten the monkey off his back ahead of the World Test Championship final.
“But I think that’s the beauty of playing so long as well, to have these complications come and come over these challenges. When it comes together, like it did in this game, that gives you an extra gust of air to go beyond, go further and start enjoying cricket a lot more and be excited for what’s to come. I am just happy that it happened at the right time, before the World Test Championship final. I will definitely be going there pretty relaxed,” he concluded.
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