When runs are few, Virat Kohli is due

The law of averages suggests India captain Virat Kohli is overdue a big score against Australia, but rival skipper Tim Paine is set on making the world's best batsman earn every single run.

Kohli averages a score above 50 every 2.9 innings but has gone eight knocks without reaching a half-century against Australia.

The dry spell dates back to India's last Test of the 2014-15 tour, where he scored 46 in the second innings at the SCG after making 147 in the first.

Kohli then suffered statistically his worst ever Test series in 2017, registering scores 0, 13, 12, 15 and 6 on home soil in the 2017 Border-Gavaskar Series before exiting the campaign early with a shoulder injury.

Totals of 3 and 34 are the final scores in the barren trot, out to a gravity-defying catch by Usman Khawaja in the gully in the first innings and his most frequent Test conqueror, off-spinner Nathan Lyon, in the second dig at Adelaide Oval.

Only once in his prolific career has Kohli suffered a leaner run against one team – he went 12 innings without scoring 50 against England from November 2014 to November 2016.

While Paine conceded Kohli will likely amass a big score at some stage in the Domain Test series, he is buoyed by his side's start against the No.1 Test batter in the world.

It took Kohli 104 balls to score his second-innings 34 in Adelaide, with only three boundaries coming from his bat from more than two hours at the crease.

Kohli's strike rate of 32.69 in that knock represents the second lowest in his career in innings where he's faced at least 100 balls. The lowest was in Kohli's second Test, against the West Indies in 2011, where he scored 27 from 107 balls at a strike rate of 25.23.

And it's that type of discipline Paine wants to see from his bowling attack for the rest of the series.

"Whether he gets runs or doesn't get runs, we were really happy with how we bowled to him in Adelaide," Paine told reporters in Adelaide on Thursday.

"Obviously, in the first innings he didn’t get in and Uz took a great catch but in the second innings we were really pleased we made him face over 100 balls to score (34) runs and I don't think he does that a hell of a lot.

"And even of those 30-odd runs I think six or seven of those came off when we threw Travis Head the ball for a few overs.

"We made him face (104) balls for 30-odd and that's something we want to continue to do.

"We know at some stage he's going to score runs – he's the best player in the world so you can expect that.

"But we want to make him work really hard for every run he's going to score and we think we started the Test series really well against him."

Domain Test Series v India

Dec 6-10: First Test, Adelaide Oval, India won by 31 runs

Dec 14-18: Second Test, Perth Stadium

Dec 26-30: Third Test, MCG

Jan 3-7: Fourth Test, SCG

Australia squad: Tim Paine (c, wk), Josh Hazlewood (vc), Mitch Marsh (vc), Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Peter Handscomb, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc, Chris Tremain

India squad: Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Prithvi Shaw, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant (wk), Parthiv Patel (wk), Ravi Ashwin, Ravi Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar