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