While a few cricket experts and pundits were worried about the form of former India captain Virat Kohli heading into the Ahmedabad Test match, the star India batter made the best use of the excellent batting conditions on offer at the Narendra Modi Stadium to notch up his 28th Test match hundred. This was Kohli's first century in the purest form of the game in over 1200 days. However, it wasn't one of the most dominating knocks that Kohli has played in his career. He took his time and ran a lot of singles and doubles on his way to the landmark.
He got to his century off the 241st delivery that he faced with the help of just 5 boundaries. Thereafter, his innings looked a bit more fluent and the right-handed batter was closing in on a double hundred. But the injury to Shreyas Iyer and a couple of quick wickets meant he was running out of partners and had to take the onus on himself to either look for twos, hit boundaries and farm the strike.
It was in this passage of play when Australia captain Steve Smith made a unique field setting, placing all his fielders on the boundary. This meant that there was hardly any two or boundary on offer. When Kohli tried to get a two by playing it with soft hands on the on-side, Umesh Yadav got run out which might have also played on the minds of the batter when last man Mohammed Shami joined him at the 22 yards.
This led to Kohli trying to clear the fence and getting out after a superb innings of 186 balls off 364 deliveries. The picture of Smith's field setting to deny the batter a double century has gone viral on social media.
Check it out here:
Talking about the match, the game seems to be heading towards a draw at Stumps on Day 4. Australia opted to bat first and scored 480 before Kohli and Shubman Gill's hundred helped India take a 91-run first innings lead. At the end of the play on Sunday, Australia are 3/0, triling by 88 runs with a maximum of 90 overs set to be bowled on the final day of the Test.