TOI Sports Desk
NEW DELHI: Sledging and mind games have been an integral part of Australian cricket folklore almost ever since they started playing the game.
And it’s also a known fact that the Aussies tend to leave great players alone and try not to sledge as that makes great cricketers only more determined to score big against them.
Border-Gavaskar Trophy
Virat Kohli is one of those players and over the years he has made sure to score big against the Aussies whenever he has been sledged.
Ahead of the five-match Border-Gavaskar Trophy series, which begins in Perth on November 22, Australian spinner Nathan Lyon recalled a similar battle with Virat during the 2014Test at the Adelaide Oval.
In a video shared by Cricket Australia on their official X handle, Lyon says, “The one battle that comes out to me is the 2014 Test at Adelaide Oval where he (Kohli) got hundreds in both innings. I was bowling to him and he was batting that easily. He’d come down to the non-striker’s end and just say ‘Federer’. And I was like ‘Oh, okay, what’s this?’ He kept doing it, kept doing it every time. Every time he’d come down there, he was like ‘Federer, Federer‘. And I said ‘Mate, I don’t know if I’m wrong, but are we playing the wrong sport if you think you’re Roger Federer.’ And he goes ‘Nah, nah, I’ve got a beautiful forehand’. I’m just like ‘Ah, okay.’ You’re a decent player when you can just sit there and do that mid-innings.”
In his first Test as India captain, Virat Kohli scored 115 and 141 in both the innings, but India fell short of the Aussie target and lost the Test by just 48 runs.
Having scored six hundreds from 13 Test matches and averaging 54.08, Kohli has historically dominated red-ball cricket in Australia but he has only averaged 22.72 in his six Test matches this season.
After scoring just 91 runs in India’s shocking 0-3 series loss to New Zealand at home earlier this month, Kohli enters his seventh tour to Australia.
The 36-year-old Kohli has scored just one fifty this year – 70 against New Zealand in the second innings of the first Test at Bengaluru, while his last Test century came in July 2023 against the West Indies.
With India set to play the first Test in Perth from November 22, Kohli can hope to strike form from the word go.
Kohli has till now played two Tests in Perth – one at the WACA in which he scored 44 and 75 in the two innings in January 2012 which Australia won by an innings and 37 runs.
The second Test that Kohli played in Perth was as captain in 2018 and he became the first batsman to score a Test hundred at the new Perth stadium as he scored his 25th Test century at the age of 30.
India need to win 4 Tests in Australia to directly qualify for the World Test Championships final that is scheduled to be held at Lord’s in June 2025.
