‘Not easy to work on your game these days'

Playing In His 100th Test, Virat Kohli Talks About The Rigours Of Being A Modern-Day Cricketer

- Arani Basu

Mohali: For the first four hours on Friday, the script for Virat Kohli’s 100th Test looked like playing out just as he would have wanted it to.

The day started with head coach Rahul Dravid felicitating him on behalf of BCCI with a touching speech, with Kohli’s wife Anushka Sharma standing right next to him on the field of play. And when he got going with an absolutely silken on-drive, it seemed he was at his imperious best.

On his way to 45 off 75 balls, he brought up 8000 Test runs before left-arm spinner Lasith Embuldeniya managed to turn one past his outside edge as he tried to punch him off the backfoot and knock over his off-stump.

Shell-shocked, Kohli stared at the pitch for a while before he marched back to the pavilion. The wait for his 71st Test hundred got longer.

It has been the same story for Kohli since his 27th Test century against Bangladesh at Eden Gardens in November 2019. If his last nets session here at the PCA stadium was any indication, the dismissal shouldn’t surprise many. Left-arm spinner Saurabh Kumar has been beating him similarly quite frequently.