Virat Kohli has surely found form in the ongoing Australia series with his second consecutive 50 Down Under in the Australia-India third ODI in Canberra. Kohli scored 63 runs to put a solid foundation for India's competitive total. The innings come right after he scored 89 for the losing cause in the second ODI in Sydney.
However, the skipper has found it hard to score a century. In fact, Kohli will go without a century for the first time in a calendar year and the biggest blame of that goes to Josh Hazelwood, who has now dismissed the 32-year-old Indian skipper in four consecutive ODIs.
Hazelwood is now ahead of fellow countrymen Jhye Richardson and Pakistan pacer Junaid Khan, who have dismissed the Indian star batsmen three times on the trot in ODIs before.
The streak started from early in the year when Australian tour India in January. The 29-year-old right-arm pacer clean bowled Kohli at Bangalore's Chinnaswamy Stadium when the latter was just 11 runs away from his century. India eventually went on to win the game as Rohit Sharma's century helped the home team salvage pride in 1-2 series loss.
The next three dismissals came in the ongoing India tour of Australia while Kohli was edging closer to another century in two of the innings.
Kohli played 9 ODIs in 2020, scoring five half-centuries. While four of them came against Australia, he scored another against New Zealand in February.
With the highest score of 89 (which he reached twice; both against Australia), Kohli ended the year with 431 runs in 9 ODIs, at an average of 47.88.
Kohli played six ODIs (against Australia and New Zealand) before the COVID-19 pandemic put a halt to international cricket across the globe. He made a return to international action late in November with the tour to Australia. He scored two half-centuries in three games.
