India are gearing up to face Australia in the fourth Test match of the Border-Gavaskar series in Melbourne. With the series poised at 1-1, the Boxing Day Test match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground can be a series-deciding one. Meanwhile, India's batting maestro Virat Kohli is eyeing a major record of former legend Sachin Tendulkar.
Kohli has enjoyed batting at the MCG, with 316 runs at an average of 52.66 in six innings. Kohli is eyeing Sachin's record for most runs by an Indian at the MCG. The former India legend Tendulkar had slammed 449 runs in five matches (10 innings) at the venue. Kohli needs another 134 runs to own the record.
Most runs by an Indian at the MCG:
1 - Sachin Tendulkar: 449 runs in 5 matches (10 innings)
2 - Ajinkya Rahane: 369 runs in 3 matches (6 innings)
3 - Virat Kohli: 316 runs in 3 matches (6 innings)
4 - Virender Sehwag: 280 runs in 2 matches (4 innings)
5 - Rahul Dravid: 263 runs in 4 matches (8 innings)
Kohli is having a mediocre series so far. Apart from that hundred in the second innings in Perth, the 36-year-old hasn't played a knock of substance. He has hit 26 runs in the other four innings and would be itching to make a mark now.
His dismissals have also been under the scanner as he has fallen to deliveries outside off stump or has been done for the bounce in the series so far.
Former Australian World Cup-winning captain Allan Border recently raised concerns over Kohli's form and wondered whether he has 'lost that edge.'
"Today’s dismissal, that’s normally a delivery he would have left alone if he was in his best possible form," Border was quoted as saying by Fox Cricket after the first innings of the third Test match at Gabba. "I’m not sure what’s going on with Virat mentally (and) whether he’s just lost that edge," he added.
Border's heyday opponent Sunil Gavaskar, the other person on whom the Border-Gavakar trophy is named, also expressed his disappointment with Kohli's dismissal at Gabba. "If it was on the fourth stump I could understand. This was wide, on the seventh, eighth stump, you could say. There's no need to play that," Gavaskar said on Channel 7.
