Not easy to go away and work on your game these days: Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli’s 100th Test looked like playing out just as he would have loved to. The day started with head coach Rahul Dravid felicitating him on behalf of BCCI with a touching speech with Kohli’s wife Anushka Sharma standing right next to him in the field of play. And when he got going with an absolutely silken on-drive, it seemed he was at his imperious best. On his way to 45 off 75 balls, he brought up 8000 Test runs before left-arm spinner Lasith Embuldeniya managed to turn one past his outside edge as he tried to punch him off the backfoot and knock over his off-stump. Shell-shocked, Kohli stared at the pitch for a while before he marched back to the pavilion. The wait for his 71st Test hundred got longer.

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Rishabh Pant is an anomaly in Indian cricket. He changes the course of a game faster than the opinions about him. Friday was just another day of now-usual Pant-mania as he walked in at 170/3 40 minutes before tea, took on a rather erratic but effective Sri Lankan attack and left the field half an

It has been the same story for Kohli since he registered his 27th Test century against Bangladesh at Eden Gardens in November 2019. If his last nets session here at the PCA stadium was any indication, the dismissal shouldn’t surprise many. Left-arm spinner Saurabh Kumar had been frequently beating him similarly. For all the jaw-dropping numbers he has conjured over the last 11 years of Test cricket, this has to be the most frustrating phase of Kohli’s batting career. He is not the one to conceal his disappointment. “I am not able to get a big score and something that I need to be mindful of and try and build