When Virat Kohli gets going, the records tumble.

Kohli slammed a double century on the second day of the second Test against South Africa on Friday in Pune to register more 200-plus scores than any other Indian in the history of the longest format.

In the course of his innings, Kohli surpassed batting great Don Bradman’s Test tally of 6,996 runs as he completed his seventh 200 in his 81st Test.

He swept Senuran Muthusamy for two runs to reach the landmark and raised his bat with a smile to an ovation from the crowd in Pune. Kohli has now scored more than 7,000 Test runs at an average of over 53 since making his debut in the West Indies in 2011.

The benchmark puts him in the top 50 Test run-getters, a field led by Indian icon Sachin Tendulkar with 15,921 runs in 200 matches. Tendulkar retired in 2013 with 100 international centuries across formats.

Playing his 50th Test as captain, Kohli has overtaken many big names in Test cricket. Sri Lanka’s Sanath Jayasuriya and Australian Steve Smith (6973 each), and former England batsman Len Hutton (6971) are now behind Kohli in Test runs.

While Kohli needed 138 innings to get this far, Bradman got the runs in 80 innings at an average of 99.94.

Here are the statistical highlights of Kohli’s innings:

  • Kohli now has the most double hundreds among Indian batsmen, while Bradman leads the international list with 12 to his name. He went past Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag’s tally of six double centuries by an Indian.
  • Kohli, who hit his overall 26th hundred during the second Test against South Africa, is now on par with Ponting on the list of captains, while former South Africa captain Graeme Smith leads the list with 25 tons to his credit.

Most Test tons by captains

Player No of centuries Highest score
GC Smith (SA) 25 277
V Kohli (INDIA) 19 254*
RT Ponting (AUS) 19 209
AR Border (AUS) 15 205
SPD Smith (AUS) 15 239
SR Waugh (AUS) 15 199
DG Bradman (AUS) 14 270
MJ Clarke (AUS) 14 329*
DPMD Jayawardene (SL) 14 374
BC Lara (WI) 14 400*

  • Since registering his first double century (which came after 40 Tests) Kohli has been dismissed for less than 150 on only four times out of the 15 occasions he reached the three-figure mark. It implies an incredible conversion rate every time he gets to a century.

Virat Kohli's Test tons since his first 200

Runs SR Inns of the match Opposition Ground Date of Test
200 70.67 1 v West Indies North Sound 21 Jul 2016
211 57.65 1 v New Zealand Indore 8 Oct 2016
167 62.54 1 v England Visakhapatnam 17 Nov 2016
235 69.11 2 v England Mumbai 8 Dec 2016
204 82.92 1 v Bangladesh Hyderabad (Deccan) 9 Feb 2017
103* 75.73 3 v Sri Lanka Galle 26 Jul 2017
104* 87.39 3 v Sri Lanka Kolkata 16 Nov 2017
213 79.77 2 v Sri Lanka Nagpur 24 Nov 2017
243 84.66 1 v Sri Lanka Delhi 2 Dec 2017
153 70.50 2 v South Africa Centurion 13 Jan 2018
149 66.22 2 v England Birmingham 1 Aug 2018
103 52.28 3 v England Nottingham 18 Aug 2018
139 60.43 1 v West Indies Rajkot 4 Oct 2018
123 47.85 2 v Australia Perth 14 Dec 2018
254* 75.59 1 v South Africa Pune 10 Oct 2019

  • Kohli registered his ninth 150 plus score as captain, once again going past Bradman, who had eight such knocks.
  • Coming in October, this is the Indian star’s first hundred of this year, having scored two fifties in the eight innings that he has played in 2019. In his Test career, this is the latest he has scored a ton in a calendar year (no century in 2011, his first season).
  • Kohli got to his highest ever first-class score and also set the record for the best individual score by an Indian captain in Tests, going past his own previous marks of 243 (against Sri Lanka) and 235 (against England).

  • Kohli has moved up on the list of leading Indian run-scorers, going past Dilip Vengsarkar.

India's leading run-scorers in Tests

Player Matches (Inns) Runs Ave 100s 50s
SR Tendulkar 200 (329) 15921 53.78 51 68
R Dravid 163 (284) 13265 52.63 36 63
SM Gavaskar 125 (214) 10122 51.12 34 45
VVS Laxman 134 (225) 8781 45.97 17 56
V Sehwag 103 (178) 8503 49.43 23 31
SC Ganguly 113 (188) 7212 42.17 16 35
V Kohli 81 (138) 7054 55.10 26 23

  • No batsman in Test cricket has scored 150-plus more times than Kohli since the Indian made is debut in the longest format in 2011.

150-plus Test scores since Kohli's debut

Player 150-plus scores Runs Highest score
V Kohli (INDIA) 10 2049 254*
SPD Smith (AUS) 8 1561 239
MJ Clarke (AUS) 7 1527 329*
AN Cook (ENG) 7 1572 294
CA Pujara (INDIA) 7 1270 206*

Here are some more statistics from Kohli’s marathon effort:

With agency and ESPNCricinfo Statsguru inputs