Ahmedabad: Virat Kohli's epic century in the fourth Test against Australia in Ahmedabad came after 1205 days, a long wait for the India cricketer and his fans.
Kohli admitted that not scoring a Test century in over three years was playing on his mind and making things difficult for him.
"If I will have to be brutally honest, it does become a little complicated and difficult because the moment you step out of the hotel room, right from the guy outside the room to the guy in the lift to the bus drivers, everyone was saying ‘we want a hundred.’ So it does play on your mind all the time,” he told Rahul Dravid in an interview on BCCI.TV.
However, he took that as a challenge, which helped him grow as a cricketer.
“But that’s the beauty of playing cricket for so long as well, to have these complications and to overcome these challenges and then it comes together nicely as it did in this game, then that gives you the extra confidence to go beyond and go further and start enjoying the cricket a lot more,” he added.
Kohli scored 186, forming crucial partnerships with Ravindra Jadeja, KS Bharat and Axar Patel that helped India take the lead in Ahmedabad and eventually help qualify for the ICC World Test Championship final in June 2023 at The Oval, the ICC reported.
“I am happy that it came at the right time just before the WTC final, and I will definitely be going there very relaxed and very excited,” he added.
Kohli continued speaking about his hundred, elaborating on how important it was not only for him personally but also for the team. The fourth Test ended up in a draw but India took the series 2-1.
"To be honest, I have led the complications to grow on me a little bit because of my own shortcomings. I think the desperation to get that three-figure mark is something that can grow on you as a batsman we have all experienced that in some stage or the other," he said.
"I let that happen to me to a certain extent but also, the flip side to it is that I am not a guy who is happy with forty and forty-five. I have always been someone who takes a lot of pride in performing for the team," Kohli said.
"It’s not like Virat Kohli should stand out. It’s like when I am batting on 40 I know I can get a 150 here and that would help my team so that was eating me a lot," he said.
"Why I am not able to get that big score for the team is because I always took pride in the fact that when the team needed me I would step up and perform in different conditions and situations. The fact that I was not able to do that bothered me," he said.
Kohli's hundred was also his 75th international ton but the No.4 batter is not concerned about milestones and cares more about ensuring to put his team in a strong position.
“Not so much the milestone as such because I never played for the milestones. A lot of people asked me this question how do you keep scoring hundreds and I always told them a hundred is something that happens along the way within my goal, which is to bat as long as possible for the team and get as many runs as possible," Kohli added. (UNI)