India will face New Zealand in the World Test Championship final at Southampton starting June 18. The Indian side reached England on 4th June and is all set to go into the finals. Going into the WTC final, Virat Kohli will look to end his century drought. He hasn’t scored an international century since 2019. This is the longest run in which he didn’t score a ton since his debut.
Let us look at his numbers against New Zealand in Test Cricket.
The Indian captain has scored 773 runs in 17 innings at a sublime average of 51.5 against NZ in Test cricket. It includes three fifties and three tons. He is the sixth-highest run-scorer for India against New Zealand in Test cricket, behind Rahul Dravid (1,659), Sachin Tendulkar (1,595), Virender Sehwag (883), VVS Laxman (818), and Mohammad Azharuddin (796) on the list.
Kohli’s highest score against New Zealand of 211 came in Indore Test 2016. India won the match with a massive run margin. He smashed 20 boundaries in this magnificent innings. Also, this was Kohli’s second double-ton of the year, becoming the first Indian to make two double-hundreds as captain. Previously, he scored 200 against the West Indies in July, in Antigua. He also became the first Indian since Sachin Tendulkar in 2010 to score two double-tons in a year.
Virat Kohli- Home vs away record against New Zealand
| Home | Stats | Away |
| 5 | Matches | 4 |
| 521 | Runs | 252 |
| 65.12 | Average | 36 |
| 2 | 100s | 1 |
| 211 | Highest score | 105* |
Virat Kohli had one of the worst outings in his career when India last visited on New Zealand tour 2019-20. He scored 2, 19, 3, 14 in 4 innings at an average of 9.50, his lowest in an away Test series (two or more matches). Also, this was only the second series of two or more Tests in which Kohli didn’t cross the 20-run mark. And surprisingly, Shami scored more runs than Kohli in this series.
Virat Kohli vs New Zealand’s pace attack
| Stats | Tim Southee | Trent Boult | Neil Wagner |
| Balls | 214 | 226 | 108 |
| Runs | 109 | 132 | 60 |
| Dismissals | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Strike-rate | 50.93 | 58.41 | 55.56 |
Over the years, Kohli has been dismissed thrice by Boult, Southee, and Wagner. As a result, New Zealand most likely will go with the same attack in the WTC final. Kohli has to be a little patient and play carefully against these three at the start of the innings and once he gets set he can play his normal shots.
