What made Virat Kohli’s 30th Test century special – temperament, match awareness and discipline | Cricket News

In the end, the adoring crowd knew before Virat Kohli that he had reached his much-awaited hundred. He wasn’t sure if the diving fielder at fine-leg had pushed the ball back into the field of play that would have meant he was still on 98. The crowd had no such doubts. The drums were banging at deep cover behind six Indian flags hung side side on the fence, his name was being loudly chanted, even as he waited, looked around, checked with the umpire before he broke into a smile, unpinned his helmet clasp from behind his head, held his bat aloft and soaked in his 30th Test and 80th international hundred. He would soon blow kisses to his wife Anushka Sharma in the stands and talk about her as his chief source of strength.In the final session, in the company of adventurous Nitish Reddy, Kohli had motored along to ensure India could declare in time to have a go at the tired Aussies. Kohli got his hundred, and Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammad Siraj prised out three quick wickets between them to leave Australia tottering at 12 for 3 in 4.2 overs, still needing 522 runs.
The first sign that it could be Kohli’s day was the return of the famous swat-flick that had worryingly faded in the recent past.
“Paaji was incredible, he has done this for so long, I just enjoyed watching,” his young team-mate and the man who set up the game in the second innings with a stunning 161 Yashasvi Jaiswal would purr at the end of the day.
Around the time Rohit Sharma landed at Perth airport, Kohli had taken center stage at the stadium, helping India navigate a minor bump of three quick wickets, that included Rishabh Pant who would later hug Kohli tightly after his hundred, and lead them towards an immense position of strength.
The batting wasn’t arduous for the majority of the third day, where increasingly variable bounce began to come into play, but the battle wasn’t only of skill. It was of temperament, the awareness of the bigger picture, and the discipline to grind out the day. Kohli, in search of runs after a fallow period with his last hundred coming before 16 innings, had all those traits – and the presence to do it in style in a country where he has now scored 7 Test hundreds, one more than Sachin Tendulkar.
He might have his share of critics in India, but Australia has warmed up to him for a long while now. They respect his pugnacity, admire his aggressive instincts, and one could say almost in love with him. The Australians in the stands too were up on their feet, clapping and taking ‘I was there’ snaps.
It was the classic waiting day of Test cricket, the one where India had to wait out the day, accumulate the runs to pile the scoreboard pressure on the Aussies. Not just the amount of runs, but the need to play out the day was to ensure more wear and tear on the pitch that can potentially make batting more difficult on the final two days.
Lyon vs Kohli
The Australians were better than yesterday with their plans. Nathan Lyon operated with a 7-2 field for Kohli, packing the men on the leg side. A short leg, a leg slip, a wide-ish short-fine, a man to the left of the square-leg umpire, a very straight short midwicket. They also had men at deep, a long leg and long-on. And Lyon toiled hard from round the stumps.
But Kohli kept swat-flicking him. Not always in the gap as that field was packed, but that was not the point. He wasn’t going to just lunge forward and grope or prod around. Lyon kept teasing him with flighted deliveries on that length and Kohli kept wring them to the on side. Through the day, every now and then, Kohli and Lyon would also keep chatting, and it would regularly end with smiles on both faces.
That he has thought about the first innings was evident in how he started the innings, itself. Unlike in the first, where he stood well outside the crease and got undone a one that bounced sharply, he wasn’t that far out in the second. Also, in the first, he would take a stride forward to the pacers. Not today. His first move was a touch back and across, with the foot touching the popping crease, and from there, depending on the length he pressed forward or pushed back.
There wasn’t the first-day extra bounce on this track, and he could drive and whip the pacers too. The concerns, if any, was would he chase deliveries too far away from him. Early on, he did lunge across to Josh Hazlewood but the ball didn’t carry to point. He would course-correct though.
“He was tighter outside off stump and he looked good,” Josh Hazlewood said after day’s play. “The match situation also dictated his style as they were looking to declare and put us in. It was like an ODI knock.”

Not only the swat-flick, but Kohli also deployed the sweep shots. One came pretty early in the piece, and another one fetched him the hundred he would cherish. It was his 9th hundred against Australia but above all though, after Jaiswal’s magnum opus, was perfect in its timing, pacing, and understanding of the game situation. All this was taken for granted for much of his glorious Test career and this knock after the recent blip would have reassured his fans that he hasn’t lost that impeccable sense.