Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar said that Virat Kohli’s body was completely relaxed when he came into bat in the second innings of the 1st 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test in Perth. He also observed that the cricketer had slightly adjusted his stance to tackle the conditions. Notably, Kohli smashed a hundred in the second essay, bringing up his 30 Test ton.

Speaking to Star Sports, Gavaskar said (as quoted by PTI): “His body was completely relaxed when he came into bat in the second innings. In the first innings, because of the fact that India had lost two wickets early, he would have also been under pressure. In that second innings, you could sense apart from changing that stance, I think he also got his legs, which were maybe just a little bit wider at the start. Just a little bit, maybe I’m thinking too much, but that little thing might have given him that height he wanted. Well, in Australia, on the bouncier pitches, you need that edge,” he again added.

“That, to me, was not the easiest of shots. A straight drive is a little easier because your stance is like that, but just to open up a little bit and play that – that was all magic.”

Ahead of the Perth Test, there was a lot of noise about the fact that Kohli had not scored a Test ton since July 2023. Gavaskar, however, downplayed it all while making an interesting comparison between his poor form and the phase when tennis legends like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic did not win a title as well.

“I said in commentary that Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Rafa Nadal, they are title winners. If they lose in the semi-finals, people say, ‘Oh, they’re not in form.’ Anybody else getting into the semi-finals, you would say, ‘Oh, what a wonderful performance’. Similarly, with Virat Kohli, because everybody is so used to him scoring so many hundreds quite regularly, when he doesn’t score 100, even if he’s getting 70-80 — which a lot of guys will be very happy to get — people say, ‘Look, he’s not scoring runs.’ And that is the reason why there was that feeling,” he concluded.