Just 17 months ago, Virat Kohli did not have a single, double century to his name. Arguably the best batsman in the world at the moment, Kohli was among runs, but he was not converting his hundreds into big scores. However, things have changed for the 29-year old since the last season as within 17 months; the right-handed batsman has plundered as many as six double tons with the latest of them coming on Sunday (December 2) in the ongoing third Test against Sri Lanka in Delhi.
The first of the lot came against West Indies in July and was followed by double centuries in the following three series against New Zealand, England and Bangladesh, making him the first player to score four double tons in four consecutive series. And the Delhi-born star has started this season in the same fashion too. In the first game of the series, he scored a sublime 104 in the second innings and followed it with a 213-run innings in the second Test. Kohli continued the same form in the ongoing game too as he slammed his career-best 243.
It is a remarkable turnaround for a player who was not known for playing big knocks, and the India skipper spoke on it while talking to Cheteshwar Pujara on BCCI tv. Kohli shared that it is Pujara who has inspired him to score big hundreds and that he has learnt to bat longer watching Pujara do that.
“Feels wonderful. It was always my mindset to score big hundreds, something that I have watched you (referring to Pujara) do a lot in your career early on and learnt also, how to concentrate for longer periods,” Kohli said after the second day’s play.
“We have all learnt from his (Pujara) long innings, his concentration levels and his will to keep batting. So I also got inspired by that to keep batting for the team for as long as possible. Now I only think of how I can play more for the team and then you know, you don’t feel the tiredness and anything else and keep carrying on looking at the situation,” he added.
At just 29, Kohli has scored 52 international centuries with 20 of them coming in the longest format of the game. When asked to pick his favourite century and double century, the star batsman said:
“My favourite hundred would be Adelaide second innings (against Australia) and my favourite double hundred till now would be Mumbai 235 (against England).”
In a recent event, Kohli had thrown his support behind Test cricket and had urged youngsters to make the longest format of the game their top priority. Kohli once again reiterated his support for Test cricket, stating that the oldest format of the game gives a player the most satisfaction.
“My favourite format is obviously Test cricket. That’s where we are now making sure that this should be the most important format because as batsmen and as bowlers also we know how pleasing it is to score in Test matches, especially when conditions are tough and sometimes like you batted 500 balls in Ranchi so you’ll have to do things like that, sometimes you will have to counter conditions in South Africa, England and Australia. So, job satisfaction is the most in this format. ODI and T20 also from an emotional point of view, when there is full stadium, you win a close game it gives a high but I think job satisfaction is the most in Test cricket,” he explained.
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