As Rohit Sharma and R Ashwin got to their respective hundreds in the second Test match against England, Virat Kohli led the applause from the dressing room. As Axar Patel got his maiden wicket, then his maiden fifer, then his maiden ten-wicket haul, it was Kohli, again, with his Dale Steyn-esque like celebrations, who was the first to congratulate him. As Ishant Sharma started his run-up to bowl his first over in his 100th Test match, Kohli urged an already noisy Motera to cheer him on.
Over the past few years, the Indian skipper has often been at the forefront, celebrating his mates’ achievements. With a vociferous roar or an animated leap, Kohli has set a precedent, and it will not be a far-fetched to suggest that Mohammed Siraj’s excited run to help Ashwin get his hundred in Chennai had a lot to do with that culture.
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It has been 462 days since Virat Kohli scored a hundred. Four hundred and sixty two. That’s a little over 15 months – though, to be fair, a chunk of it was spent in a lockdown. While we understand that players face blips in their careers, two things make us impatient. First, Kohli is not exactly in bad form; and secondly, for someone who would score hundreds for almost fun, the long gap seems almost unnatural.
Kohli scored his maiden ton in December 2009. Since then, he has raised the tally to 70 in international cricket (27 in Tests, 43 in ODIs), 36 of which have come since January 2016. He was the second-fastest to 50 (348 innings), 60 (386 innings) and 70 international hundreds (439 innings). It seemed only a matter time until he breached the 100-hundreds feat.
Then came 2020, the first time Kohli went without a hundred in a calendar year for the first time since 2008, his debut year. He could not get to triple figures in 25 innings despite going past fifty seven times. This is a man who had converted 70 of his 103 fifty-plus scores into hundreds – a whopping 67.96 per cent.
Yet, between the moments of hope every time he walks out amid cheers, and the inevitable hair-grabbing every time he walks back, Kohli has shown his skills and might in tough conditions.
He got awfully close when he scored a fine 89 off 87 balls against Australia in the third ODI at Canberra in the failed run-chase of 390 that India lost by 51 runs, and followed it up with 63 as India posted 302 on the board. He scored 85 as India faltered yet again in a chase of 186 against Australia in the T20I.
He ended the year with a knock of 74 in the pink-ball Test match before he was run out for just the second time in his career. His knock that came in 180 balls had Kohli looking in great touch, as he shared crucial stands with Cheteshwar Pujara and then Ajinkya Rahane that helped India out from a difficult position.
On a tough track in Chennai, Kohli gritted it out for a fine 74 in the first Test, and followed it up with 62 in the next game even as all talks revolved around how unplayable the track was. He gave hopes of his century in the Pink Ball Test, before getting dismissed in the last over of Day 1 for 27.
While the wait and anguish continue, and the days since his last ton – that 136 against Bangladesh in the pink-ball Test – keep increasing with every passing day, we can take comfort in the fact that Kohli has been getting the tough runs and has never quite looked out of sorts. It is, then, just a matter of time before that animated leap, that utterance of the choicest of words (in all probability, not the purest), and that wave of the willow around to acknowledge what will be a vociferous roar around the ground.
And when he gets there, Rohit will be seen whistling, Ashwin will record a two-hour video on the King, Siraj will be ecstatic, Ishant will be urging the crowd to chant louder and Axar may be the first to hug Kohli on his way back. Oh, what scenes it will be!