Ravi Shastri’s massive prediction about Virat Kohli
Comes the WTC Final in London, all eyes will be on Kohli when he takes the field against the Australians
Virat Kohli will hold the key when India take on Australia in the World Test Championship (WTC) final at The Oval, starting Wednesday. He has been in superb form lately and former head coach Ravi Shastri believes that the ace Indian batter will go all guns blazing against the Aussies in the much-awaited face-off.
Unlike the previous WTC final, in which India lost to New Zealand in 2021, Kohli has been in a different zone altogether. Earlier this year, he ended the Border-Gavaskar Trophy as the second-highest scorer of the series, with 297 runs, ending his century draught in the longest format of the game. Kohli scored 186 in the Ahmedabad Test, helping India post 571 in the first innings. The game ended in a draw while the former India skipper was adjudged the player of the match for his brilliant triple figures.
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His red-hot form continued in the recently-concluded Indian Premier League (IPL) where he scored 639 runs in 14 games, ending the season as the second top-scorer of the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) after skipper Faf du Plessis (730 runs).
Comes the WTC Final in London, all eyes will be on Kohli when he takes the field against the Australians. In a video posted by the ICC on Instagram, Shastri said if the star batter gets 20 runs to start with, he will have a blast on the English soil.
“Virat Kohli will wake up differently if the match is against Australia, he smells the coffee much earlier if it’s Australia, so if he gets going, gets to 20, then we will have some fun,” Shastri said.
Kohli has 28 Test centuries to his name and if he manages to score another, he will with legendary Australian batter Don Bradman’s career tally. In terms of active cricketers, Kohli will also draw level with England star Joe Root, who has 29, behind only Steve Smith, who has 30 tons.
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A century will also mean he becomes the sole owner of the second spot in the list of most hundreds by an Indian against Australia in Tests. Virat and Sunil Gavaskar have eight each with Sachin leading the list with 11.
Kohli also needs just 21 runs to get to 2,000 runs in Test cricket against Australia and 55 more runs to touch the 5,000-run mark against Australia across all formats.
