Virat Kohli has been struggling in Test cricket since December 2019, which has caused his average score to drop. He has had even more difficulty facing spinners while playing in India. Before January 2021, he had a high average score of 115 against spinners in India, but now his average score is only 22.85. Kohli’s weakness against spin has become so obvious that Australia has not even bowled a single over of pace against him in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. He has been dismissed by off-spinner Todd Murphy three times and left-arm spinner Matthew Kuhnemann twice.
The red-ball struggle for Virat Kohli
Despite his struggles, Kohli has not played poorly in any of his recent matches. His 44-run performance in the first innings in Delhi was considered one of his best by experts, although he was unlucky to be given out by the umpire. Kohli has been finding ways to get out, sometimes due to losing concentration or an umpiring mistake. He has not been getting lucky breaks in red-ball cricket lately.
The former skipper Virat Kohli will try to forget about his past struggles when India plays Australia in the fourth Test in Ahmedabad. Kohli’s performance will be very important for the team. Although he hasn’t done as well in the last three years, he is close to achieving a new record. Kohli is only 42 runs away from scoring 4000 Test runs in India, which only four other Indian players have done before: Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sunil Gavaskar, and Virender Sehwag.
If Kohli reaches this milestone in the first innings of the Ahmedabad Test, he will be the third fastest player to reach 4000 Test runs in India, beating the current head coach of India, Rahul Dravid, and the legendary Sunil Gavaskar. Gavaskar took 87 innings while Dravid took 88, but Kohli has a chance to do it in 76 innings. His average score of 58 is the highest among all the batters on this list.
Sehwag is the fastest player to score 4000 Test runs in India, reaching the milestone in just 71 innings. Tendulkar is second on the list, achieving the feat in 78 innings. However, Tendulkar has the most runs scored in Tests in India, with 7216 runs in 153 innings. Following Tendulkar are Dravid (5598), Gavaskar (5067), and Sehwag (4656).
Skipper also nearing a milestone
In addition to Kohli, Indian captain Rohit Sharma also has several milestones to achieve. Rohit also needs 21 more runs to reach 17000 runs in international cricket. He is also 56 runs away from scoring 3000 runs as an international cricket captain. Additionally, Rohit needs 33 runs to score 2000 runs in Tests played in India.
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