Virat Kohli's South Africa chronicles

Another tour to South Africa another broken dream of Team India conquering the Final Frontier Despite the SA vs IND Tests ending in a 11 draw a key highlight of the twomatch affair was Indias talismanic batter Virat KohliThe 35yearold is well and truly back in whites While the batter scored runs in all the recent Test outings most notably the tour to West Indies Kohli fought for every run and boundary At times this player with immortal godlike records looked like a mortal while batting getting beaten by the ball sometimesWhile batting against Proteas this time around in their territory Kohli looked at his most majestic in years While every other batter struggled for boundaries and runs throughout the SA vs IND Tests the batter found gaps at will and played with a fresh and attacking intentThe biggest example was during the first Test at Centurion While Team India collapsed like a pack of cards in an attempt to fight back a first innings 163run lead Kohli played his shots with freedom seeming to play on a different surface He scored 76 in 82 balls with 12 fours and a six at a strike rate of 9268 In the first innings he scored 38 in 64 balls with five fours at a strike rate of over 59In the second Test Kohli scored 46 in 59 balls with six fours and a six at a strike rate of 7759 But fans did not really get to see Kohli taking off truly as India collapsed from 1534 to 153 all out While chasing 79 to win Kohli was dismissed for 12 in 11 balls with two fours at a strike rate of over 109Also ReadShort and sweetKohli ended the series as secondhighest rungetter and Indias highest rungetter with 172 runs in four innings at an average of 4300 with a halfcentury He scored at a strike rate of 7962 the highest among India batters He outdid his strike rates of 2020 4098 2021 4407 and 2022 3943 and 2023 5473 with the phase of 202022 being one of a painful long slump in which Kohli struggled for a Test century and sometimes even runsAs of now in 2024 his Test strike rate for this calendar year is 8225 after two inningsWith this another great Test series with the bat Kohli has continued the tradition of doing well in the land of Proteas In his first tour during 201314 he scored 272 runs at an average of 6800 with a century and fifty in four innings But that time he was well supported by Cheteshwar Pujara leading rungetter with 280 runs and Ajinkya Rahane 209 runs SA won the twomatch series 10During the tour to 2018 in Indias 21 series loss Kohli was Indias lone warrior scoring 286 runs in three matches at an average of 4766 with a century and a fifty His best score was 153 The next best batter for India was allrounder Hardik Pandya who scored 119 runs in six innings at an average of 1983 with 93 of them coming in a single inningAlso ReadThank you WarnerIn the 202122 series against Proteas Kohli scored 161 runs in four innings at an average of over 40 with the best score of 79 in four innings Above him were Rishabh Pant 186 runs in six innings at an average of over 3720 with 100 as his best score and KL Rahul 226 runs in six innings at an average of 3766 with a halfcentury and knock of 123 as his best performances He missed one Test match on the tour and his stats could have been different if he was around for itIn South Africa Kohli has played nine Tests scoring 891 runs at an average of 4950 with two centuries and four fifties in 18 innings His best score is 153Not only has Kohli done well against a quality opposition he has also struck the ball really well Against the likes of debutant Nandre Burger Marco Jansen Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi who threatened Indias batters with pace and bounce Kohli was seemingly comfortable Could his next Test peak be on the way Only time will tellWith agency inputs