As India gears up for their 3-match ODI and 3-match T20I series against Australia, the spotlight returns firmly to star Indian batter Virat Kohli, who will return to India colours after playing the last match in March against New Zealand during the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 final in Dubai.
For Kohli, who last played a competitive game in June while winning the Indian Premier League for the first time with Royal Challengers Bengaluru, the series will be more than just a comeback after a four-and-a-half-month break. With his retirement from Test and T20I cricket, the 50-over format is now his exclusive domain for the national team, and every inning he plays will take him towards the ambitious goal of being part of the Indian squad for the 2027 ODI World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. The journey to that distant tournament begins now, on the familiar yet challenging grounds of Australia, where the 36-year-old played some of his best cricket of his career.
The upcoming trip will bring back memories of his first tour of Australia in 2011/12, where the challenging tour saw Kohli evolve as a batter and get over the initial failures to score his maiden Test ton. At that time, Kohli was still a young batter trying to secure his place in the Test team while being an established white ball cricketer for India. He had already won an ODI World Cup before his first Australia tour.
The start of the series was very difficult for him. In the first two Tests at Melbourne and Sydney, his scores were 11, 0, 23, and 9 as India were thrashed by the mighty Aussies. He seemed to have struggled with the pace and bounce of the Australian pitches, with his technique tested. Going into the third Test, India were already under enormous pressure with the batting unit failing miserably. In Perth, Kohli ended up scoring 44 in the first and 75 in the second innings to get his first fifty on the tour, but could not evade the innings loss which came India’s way for the second time in a row in that series.
However, Kohli managed to turn his tour around. In the final Test match in Adelaide, he scored his first Test century in Australia, making 116. In hindsight, this innings proved his worth as if Kohli was announcing his arrival at the biggest stage in red ball. While India lost the series 4-0, Kohli finished as the team’s leading run-scorer with 300 runs.
The tour Down Under showed Kohli’s ability to adapt and fight back under pressure. The mental strength he built then helped him succeed in the Australian soil in the years that followed. Now, as he returns to the same country, perhaps for his final tour with a clear focus on the 2027 World Cup, performing well in Australia again is a crucial first step.
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