New Delhi, Dec 5 Former India head coach Ravi Shastri lauded Virat Kohli for taking his time and playing the Australia bowlers at his pace to hit an unbeaten century, which was one of the main pillars in the visitors’ getting a 295-run win in Perth.
At Perth Stadium, Kohli feasted on a tired Australian bowling line-up to bring up his seventh Test hundred on Australian soil and draw level with Walter Hammond in a list of most centuries among touring players in the longer format led by Jack Hobbs’ nine centuries.
Kohli’s unbeaten century off 143 balls, his 30th ton in Tests, came after 18 months, and was laced with eight fours and two sixes. “He came out not like a cat on a hot tin roof. That impressed me the most. Otherwise, a batsman gets out, even before the guy walks 10 yards from the stumps, Virat is halfway down into the ground. Take your time. You are one of the best the world has seen.”
“Let the opposition play at your pace. And that's exactly what he did in both the innings. In the first innings, he got a good one that bounced. But what I liked immediately was the way he adapted. He went for the back in the crease to counter the bounce, six inches so that it gave him a little more time and basically his composure and the way he moved in the crease.
“You knew within 10 minutes, I've seen a lot of his batting, but within 10 minutes, you knew that if this guy has a little bit of luck in the first 20-25 minutes he is going to make it count. So it didn't come as a surprise. Sometimes you see it very quickly. So that start gave me that confidence to believe that,” said Shastri on The ICC Review show.
With a 1-0 lead in the five-match series, India will aim to build more on the positives from Perth through the upcoming pink-ball Day-Night Test against Australia at the Adelaide Oval, starting on Friday. Shastri advised Kohli to keep following his routine and not tinker with anything in his process when facing the pink ball in Adelaide.
“Do the same things. It's very important when you waited that long. You got to visualize exactly what you did. You might not play the same way, the opposition might not bowl to you the same way as they did in that first half an hour.”
“But the basic things that you did going out to the crease, taking your guard and what you were visualising and thinking, is very important to make a note of and do the same thing again.”
“Nothing else changes. It doesn't matter if it's (the ball) pink or red or white. But that thought process going in, taking guard and visualising what you did should be second nature now. Do it,” he concluded.
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