Cricket / Kohli fails to score an ODI century in a calendar year for 1st time since debut year

Cricket Desk: Virat Kohli had created history in the Canberra ODI against Australia on Wednesday as he became the fastest batsman in the world to score 12000 runs, taking just 242 innings. Virat Kohli broke the earlier record of Sachin Tendulkar who had taken 300 innings to reach the landmark. Virat Kohli, the Indian cricket team skipper, looked good and was aiming to rebuild the innings for India after the dismissals of Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul cheaply to Ashton Agar and Adam Zampa. Virat Kohli notched up his 60th ODI fifty and looked to get India towards a big score.

However, on 63, Virat Kohli was undone by a peach of a delivery from Josh Hazlewood. The bowler angled in a good length ball outside off and it straightened at the last moment, Virat Kohli edged it and Alex Carey took the catch. In the previous ball, Virat Kohli had edged a ball but it fell short of Carey at that point in time.

This created two unwanted records for Virat Kohli. For the first time since 2008, Virat Kohli did not score an ODI century in a calendar year. In his debut in 2008, Kohli hit 54 and that was the only fifty he hit in that entire year as he finished with an average of 31.8. However, in 11 years, Kohli managed at least one century with his best being in 2017 and 2018 in which he hit six centuries and averaged 76 and 133.

The second unwanted record was that he was dismissed by Josh Hazlewood for the fourth consecutive time in ODIs this year. In both the ODIs in Sydney, Hazlewood had gotten him out while in Bangalore in 2020, Hazlewood dismissed Virat Kohli on 89 as he failed to get to a century. Trent Boult, Junaid Khan and Jhye Richardson are the other bowlers who have dismissed Virat Kohli three consecutive times.

Australia on top

India won the toss and chose to bat but they were undone by the discipline of Australia’s bowlers, especially the spin duo of Adam Zampa and Ashton Agar. Shubman Gill and Shikhar Dhawan failed to put on a solid stand while Shreyas Iyer departed only for the second time to a spinner. KL Rahul missed the sweep and he was trapped plumb in front for 5.

Virat Kohli looked good and shared a solid stand with Hardik Pandya before Kohli was dismissed by Hazlewood. Only Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja are the last two recognised batsmen currently and it will need a supreme effort if India are to reach a total in excess of 260 on a wicket that is proving to be sluggish for stroke-making.