Virat Kohli has played many a special knock in his career but one inning particularly stands out at the top of the head for Tim Paine, the former Australia captain. Paine and Kohli have squared off several times, most notably during the 2018-19 Border-Gavaskar Test series between India and Australia. It was under Kohli that India registered its maiden Test series win in Australia after 71 years and during those four matches, there was no shortage of drama and sledging incidents between the two captains.
Two years later, India would tour Australia again, but this time Kohli's participation was limited to only the first Test. However, scheduled to fly back for the birth of his first child, Kohli played a fine innings of 74 in the first innings of the Adelaide day-night Test. So much in control of his batting was Kohli that Paine thought his Australia team is going to be in for a long night.
"Yeah, I must admit though when he was batting... he was on 20-30. Then the lights came on, and I was like 'Wow, He did not look like getting out', did he? And I was like we are in some serious trouble here. I do remember for about 15 minutes, I was like 'Oh Christ! Yeah, when he got through that first period of the night, I thought 'Oh trouble'. Rahane looked just as good too there for a little while," Paine said in the docu-series 'Bando Mein Tha Dum' streaming on VOOT.
{{/usCountry}}"Yeah, I must admit though when he was batting... he was on 20-30. Then the lights came on, and I was like 'Wow, He did not look like getting out', did he? And I was like we are in some serious trouble here. I do remember for about 15 minutes, I was like 'Oh Christ! Yeah, when he got through that first period of the night, I thought 'Oh trouble'. Rahane looked just as good too there for a little while," Paine said in the docu-series 'Bando Mein Tha Dum' streaming on VOOT.
{{/usCountry}}As Paine pointed out, Kohli and Rahane were bringing India back into the match with a solid partnership, but just when it seemed that India were on course towards a big total, disaster struck. Rahane took off for a run and then sent Kohli back for the Indian captain to get run out. And from 188/4, the Indian innings capitulated and they were bowled out for 244.
"They were batting beautifully and then, thankfully, Rahane ran him out. It was brilliant. Particularly, when you feel so out of the game, we couldn't create a chance and they were batting so well, to then be literally just gifted one, and a really simple one, of their best player who was making it look pretty easy, in a difficult condition for a new batter to come in against the pink ball under lights, it's a hard place to start you innings, that was a huge shift in the game. They were not far off taking that first Test completely away from us," added Paine.