IND vs AUS, 4th Test: Virat Kohli at MCG, runs scored, stats and records
IND vs AUS, 4th Test: Virat Kohli at MCG, runs scored, stats and records
India will be looking for Virat Kohli to arrest his declining form when it takes the field against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Boxing Day. India will be looking for a win that will ensure it retains the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
A promising sign for India is that Kohli has a superb record at the MCG. In fact, his record at the MCG is the best of any batter in the current squad. In the 6 innings Kohli has played at the MCG, he has scored 316 runs at an average of 52.66. This is above his overall Test average of 47.49 and his average in Australia of 50.96.
Kohli’s first game at the MCG in the 2011/12 tour was not particularly successful. Batting at number six, Kohli returned scores of 11 and 0 as India lost by 122 runs. However, it was on his return on the 2014/15 tour that Kohli displayed his brilliance.
He scored a majestic 169 in the first innings, combining with Ajinkya Rahane in a partnership of 262 to narrow down Australia’s first innings lead to just 65 after the hosts had scored 530 in the first innings. The pair then combined for a partnership of 85(156) to rescue a draw for India after it had slipped to 19-3 in the fourth innings, Kohli scoring 54(99).
When India returned to Melbourne on the 2018/19 tour, Kohli scored another fifty (82) in the first innings. Although he fell for a duck in the second innings, Jasprit Bumrah’s nine-for led India to a 137-run victory.
Kohli also has an impressive white-ball record at the MCG. He has scored 252 runs from 6 One Day Internationals at an average of 42, and 198 runs in 4 innings in T20Is at an average of 99. The MCG was also famously the venue of his remarkable knock of 82* against Pakistan in the 2023 World T20.
Kohli currently sits third on the list of Indian run-scorers at the MCG, behind only Sachin Tendulkar (449) and Ajinkya Rahane (369). If he scores 54 runs across both innings in Melbourne, he will jump past his contemporary Rahane to second in the list.
