‘I was desperate to get to the three-figure mark’: Virat Kohli on ending his century drought in Test cricket
Virat Kohli admitted that he was desperate to score a century and it had made his life a little complicated.
Virat Kohli reached triple figures for the first time in 41 innings and a more than three years wait. Kohli scored 186 runs, his 28th Test hundred in the fourth and final Test match of the Border-Gavaskar series.
“If I will have to be brutally honest, it does become a little complicated and difficult because the moment you step out of the hotel room, right from the guy outside the room to the guy in the lift to the bus drivers, everyone was saying ‘we want a hundred.’ So it does play on your mind all the time,” Virat Kohli told Rahul Dravid in an interview on BCCI.TV.
“But that’s the beauty of playing cricket for so long as well, to have these complications and to overcome these challenges and then it comes together nicely as it did in this game, then that gives you the extra confidence to go beyond and go further and start enjoying the cricket a lot more,” he added.
Indian batter Virat Kohli celebrates after scoring a century during the 4th day of the fourth test cricket match between India and Australia, at Narendra Modi Stadium, in Ahmedabad. (PTI)
Kohli said the century came at the right time, just before the World Test Championship (WTC) final, which is scheduled to be held at the Oval from June 7 to 11.
“I am happy that it came at the right time just before the WTC final, and I will definitely be going there very relaxed and very excited,” he said.
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 👍 👍 – @RajalArora
FULL INTERVIEW 🔽 #INDvAUShttps://t.co/nF0XfltRg2 pic.twitter.com/iHU1jZ1CKG
— BCCI (@BCCI) March 14, 2023
Kohli also explained more than getting to the three-figure mark it was his own performance that was eating him up from the inside.
“To be honest, I have led the complications to grow on me a little bit because of my own shortcomings. I think the desperation to get that three-figure mark is something that can grow on you as a batsman we have all experienced that in some stage or the other,” he said.
“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 forty and forty-five. I have always been someone who takes a lot of pride in performing for the team.
“It’s not like Virat Kohli should stand out. It’s like when I am batting on 40 I know I can get a 150 here and that would help my team so that was eating me a lot.
“Why I am not able to get that big score for the team is because I always took pride in the fact that when the team needed me I would step up and perform in different conditions and situations. The fact that I was not able to do that bothered me.
“Not so much the milestone as such because I never played for the milestones. A lot of people asked me this question how do you keep scoring hundreds and 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.”
