IND vs AUS 4th Test, Day 4: King Kohli hits a Test ton after three years, India close in on lead

Virat Kohli struck his first Test century in more than three years as India reached 475 for five at tea on day four of the fourth and final match of the Border-Gavaskar trophy in Ahmedabad on Sunday.

At the break, Kohli was batting on 135 and had Axar Patel (38 batting, 75 balls) for company.

For the 15,000 odd people present at Motera, it was a Sunday to remember as Kohli guided Nathan Lyon towards mid-wicket to complete his first Test hundred since November 2019. The hundred, his 75th in international cricket, came off 241 balls.

India are now eight runs behind Australia's first innings score of 480.

Kohli's 291-ball innings picked up pace after he reached the milestone. In the first session, Kohli didn't hit a single boundary.

He also got a lot of support at the other end while adding 84 for the fifth wicket with Kona Bharat (44 off 88 balls) and another 63 with in-form Axar. The left-arm spinner has now compiled more than 200 runs in this series.

All partnerships for the first six wickets was worth more than 50 runs.

After scoring 73 runs in the morning, India upped the tempo in the post lunch session.

Bharat, who has had a dreadful run with the bat, looked impressive as he pulled and hooked Cameron Green for a couple of sixes when he tried bouncing the batter from around the wicket.

He was out to a bat-pad catch at short-leg off Nathan Lyon's bowling and missed out on what could have been a confidence boosting half-century.

But once Bharat was out, Kohli hit a flurry of boundaries and also had Axar going after the bowling.

The pitch hasn't been easy for scoring with only 73 runs scored off 32 overs in the morning session.

Brief Scores:

Australia first innings: 480 all out in 167.2 overs.

India first innings: 475 for five; 158 overs (Virat Kohli 135 batting, Shubman Gill 128, Cheteshwar Pujara 42; Todd Murphy 2/86, Nathan Lyon 2/124, Matthew Kuhnemann 1/71).