Watch: Virat Kohli was strangled down the leg-side and dismissed for a two-ball duck in the third ODI against West Indies as the long wait for his 71st international hundred continues.
Kohli, one of the best batters of the modern era, last scored a century for India in any format back in November 2019. Though he has made 23 fifties in 68 innings in this period, including a high score of 94*, his inability to get to the three-figure mark has experts and fans concerned, with Aakash Chopra recently stating that the former India skipper is “not mentally completely there at the moment”.
The third and final ODI against West Indies offered the RCB cricketer another opportunity to get to the elusive ton after India won the toss and opted to bat first. He saw himself out in the middle in just the fourth over of the innings, after Alzarri Jospeh bowled Rohit Sharma with a delivery that shaped back in slightly. However, the series ended anti-climactically for Kohli, with the No.3 strangled down the leg-side for a duck. The fifth ball of the fourth over saw Kohli try to flick away the ball only for him to nick behind to the keeper. The “unlucky” dismissal, as the on-air commentators called it, ended with a sheepish smile from Kohli, who managed 8, 18 and zero in the three matches against West Indies at an average of 8.66.
It is the first time since 2015 that Kohli ended an ODI series without a single fifty-plus score. The last time he went without making at least a half-century in an ODI series was against Bangladesh in 2015. This was also the third-worst that Kohli has averaged in an ODI series: he had averaged 4.33 against Pakistan in 2012 and 8.0 in the tri-series featuring England and Australia in 2015 Down Under.
