Virat Kohli looks at the dressing room for declaration call while batting in the 90s

Indian skipper Virat Kohli brought up his 18th Test hundred during the 1st Test at the Eden Gardens against Sri Lanka and he also went on to become the fastest to reach to 50th international hundreds. India pressed for a win and restricted the visitors to 75/7 at the end of final days play. Indian pacers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammed Shami were impressive as they shared six wickets between them, The spinners failed to scalp any sticks, which was a rare thing for the duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.

Kumar finished with outstanding figures of 4/8 while Shami ended with 2/34. After being bowled out for 172 in the first innings, the hosts came back strongly in the second innings, scoring 352/8, after their skipper took his side to safety and then changed gears towards the end.

Kohli to the rescue

Kohli’s 11th hundred as the captain helped India post a target of 231, which looked daunting considering the lack of overs that was on offer due to bad light. While batting on 97, Kohli looked towards the dressing room and signaled for the overs left before India could ideally declare. Coach Ravi Shastri signaled him to at for a few more overs and smack a few more on the way.

Post the game, Kohli credited the visitors for putting up a good show and lauded his boys for showing character. He said “It was important to make something out of the game with whatever time we had. Conditions changed drastically over the five days. We had to show character, having been on the backfoot on day one and day two. Credit to Sri Lanka. The team showed a lot of character. We didn’t look at the batting collapse. We believed in our strengths. If you didn’t have intent on this wicket, it would’ve been difficult to survive. That was the key. If we got enough good balls in the right areas, it would’ve been tough. All in all, we’re proud of how we finished.”

How about that for sign language? Care to decode this conversation between the Captain and Coach? #INDvSL pic.twitter.com/cN54UzGJy8

— BCCI (@BCCI) November 20, 2017

18th Test century for @imVkohli followed by the declaration. Sri Lanka need 231 runs to win the 1st Test #INDvSL pic.twitter.com/J0Lqp650SZ

— BCCI (@BCCI) November 20, 2017