It never seemed that he was out of form, says Sunil Gavaskar as Kohli ends his Test century drought

Ahmedabad, March 13

As Virat Kohli ended his century drought in the fourth and final Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar pointed out former skippers hundred was not a much-needed feat as the stylish India batter has never seen out of form.

Kohli scored 186 runs off 364 deliveries, his first century in the format since November 2019, as India posted a mammoth 571 on the board in response to Australia's 480 at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday

"Every great batter thinks about a hundred. A century is a minimum price he keeps for his wicket. The way Kohli was batting in the last two-and-a-half years when he didn't score a century, he was batting well and scored seven or eight fifties. So, it never seemed that he was out of form. The only thing that was happening was that he was getting out on his first mistake," said Gavaskar on Star Sports.

Kohli got his hundred in 241 balls at Ahmedabad, his second slowest century after his ton against England in the 2012/13 series coming off 289 balls. However, the batting great felt Kohli paced his innings perfectly.

"It was like how a Test match century should be constructed. He started slightly slowly, where he was trying to figure out the pitch and the bowling. Then he played a few shots after getting set and tried to play even more shots after he had scored a century. It shows how determined he was," Gavaskar said.

"He knew that India was quite far behind Australia, who had scored a mountain of runs. He had seen that Usman Khawaja played a 180-run knock and Cameron Green scored a century for Australia, and Shubman Gill played a 128-run knock. This was a good opportunity for him to play a big knock so that the Indian team reaches close to 480," he added.

--IANS