‘Few players are capable of batting like Dhoni did today’

Somewhere between the anticipation of a Sachin Tendulkar hundred at the start of the day and the delirium caused by MS Dhoni's maiden double hundred at the end of it, Virat Kohli's knock of 107 went almost unnoticed. While it will not be the most celebrated moment of the day, Kohli's fourth Test hundred ensured that there were no momentum breaks with two big partnerships — first with Tendulkar and then with Dhoni. Post stumps, Kohli spoke of the two hundreds scored today. Excerpts.

On Dhoni's 206*

Well, he bats like that. You do not have much to say. When he is in flow he can hit the ball a mile. We all saw that. He can totally take the game away from you. So it is a great example of his ability and his strike rate was 87 per cent, which is quite brilliant. Only a few players in the world can do that. That was very special to watch.

On his hundred

Really happy with the way I batted because it was really important for me to get some big runs. I had a few misses in the one-day series (against England) and suddenly I had a bad patch. But I took some time off and took some rest and went away from the game. That really helped me to become fresh. I was hungry for runs before this series.

On Aus's experiment

All of us are bit surprised by their decision to play just one spinner. They had Xavier Doherty in the squad as well. So we really thought that he is going to play this game. We are really surprised to see three seamers in the team. We decided to take advantage of that in these conditions.

On making 'small' tons

... contd.

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