Virat Kohli on Thursday made a roaring comeback, smashing his much-awaited 71st international century. Batting against Afghanistan in the last Super 4 clash at the Asia Cup 2022, the former Indian skipper smashed an unbeaten 122 off 61 deliveries with the help of 12 boundaries and half-a-dozen sixes.
The moment Kohli notched the triple-figures he had a surprising smile on his face. After his ravishing innings, that laid the foundation of India’s 101-run win over Afghanistan, the ace India batter admitted that he had never expected to get his 71st international ton in the shortest format. In fact, it was his maiden T20I hundred while the score of 122 not out is his highest in this format.
Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar believes that it won’t be surprising anymore if Kohli gets more centuries in the shortest format.
“Look, anybody who has got 70 hundred, there wasn’t any monkey on his back. With 70 hundred, he knows what he is capable of. The only thing is, this was his first hundred in the ultra-short format of the game. Don’t be surprised if we see more hundreds from him in the T20I format of the game as he goes along," Sunil Gavaskar told India Today.
The batting great underlined that Kohli was indeed getting runs but couldn’t convert them into triple figures.
“Any batter when he is expected to get hundreds when he doesn’t a century, people start to wonder. Even in this period, look at the number of 50s, 70s and 80s he got. It wasn’t like he wasn’t getting runs at all, he was getting them, but he was also not quite able to go from that to get to a hundred," Gavaskar added.
Kohli’s return among runs is also a huge positive for the team which is going through the process of finalising 15 players for the upcoming T20 World Cup in Australia. But given the fact that Kohli found his mojo back while batting as an opener, it’s yet to be seen if India consider him as a third opener.
It took Kohli almost three years to get a century in any format. His last ton came against Bangladesh in the day-night Test played in Kolkata in 2019. 1022 days later, Kohli scored a hundred, indicating that there is still something left in the tank.
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