It will be a special achievement for India’s ace batter Virat Kohli as he will be taking part in his 200th international match at home when India play Australia in the third Test at Indore. India is already 2-0 up in the four-match series after outplaying the Kangaroos in the first two Test matches. Virat has been a batting pillar for the Indian team since he started playing for India back in 2008.
In 199 matches at home soil, Virat has 10,829 runs in 221 innings at an average of 58.22 in his kitty. He amassed 34 centuries and 51 half-centuries at home, with the best score of 254*. All eyes will be on Kohli since has has not been able to make it big in the red ball format since 2020. The former India skipper will be looking to make the most out of it when he will take the field in his 200th international match at home.
If India wins the third Test, they will secure the final spot in the WTC final.
"It will be a great achievement for us [to reach the WTC final], but we know that we need to cross that final hurdle, and for that, we need to win the next game as well, so the focus is on this Test, how we can win this game, and not look too far ahead, because after this game we have got one more Test match to be played, and then after that, there are two months of IPL," Rohit said as quoted by ESPNCricinfo.
"There is a lot of time to think about the final, but right now it is very important for us to focus on this one and see how we can turn it around and win this game as well, because in the last game, we were put under pressure for sure, we can expect the same here as well, so we need to be ready for that," added Rohit.
Squads:
India: Rohit Sharma (Captain), S Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, KL Rahul, Ishan Kishan (wicketkeeper), Hardik Pandya (Vice-captain), R Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, W Sundar, Y Chahal, Mohd Shami, Mohd Siraj, Umran Malik, Shardul Thakur, Axar Patel, Jaydev Unadkat.
Australia: Pat Cummins (capt), Ashton Agar, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green (injured), Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Lance Morris, Todd Murphy, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc (injured), Mitchell Swepson, David Warner.