Indian captain Virat Kohli is on a record-breaking spree. On February 21, Kohli became the second batsman after AB de Villiers to surpass 900 points concurrently in Tests and ODIs in the ICC ODI Player Rankings.
Kohli is playing in his prime form in South Africa as he has scored 870 runs on this tour in a span of 13 innings. Both in Test and ODIs, Kohli should his class as he scored 287 and 558 runs respectively.
During the Test series, Kohli surpassed Mahendra Singh Dhoni to score most runs in Test cricket as Indian captain.
Dhoni, as a captain, scored 3454 runs for India in 60 Test matches while his successor Kohli took just 35 Tests to better the record. Dhoni was on the top of the list after overtaking the legendary India opener Sunil Gavaskar, who scored 3449 runs in 47 Tests as captain.
During the ODI, with his 35th ODI ton, Kohli broke a number of records including those of George Bailey and Kevin Pietersen’s among others.
Let’s take a look:
Kohli surpassed Australian batsman George Bailey’s tally of 478 runs against India in a bilateral ODI series as a captain in 2013/14. Now, Kohli holds the record for most runs as captain in a bilateral ODI series.
Kohli also registered the most number of runs by a batsman in a bilateral ODI series. The previous record was held by Rohit Sharma who scored 491 runs against Australia in a 6-match ODI series in 2013-14.
Kohli’s batting average of 186 is the highest by any batsman in an ODI series (above 450 runs). He took over former England cricketer Kevin Pietersen’s average of 151.33 in 7-match ODI series in 2004/05 against South Africa.
Kohli also equalled AB de Villiers’ record of most centuries as captain in a bilateral ODI series.
With every innings, Kohli has set the standards for breaking one or the other record.
In the T20Is, Kohli in on the verge of setting another record. The Delhi batsman has a chance to go past one of the greatest batsmen of all time – Don Bradman.
So far, Kohli has amassed 870 runs on this tour of 13 innings and if he manages 104 more in the remaining two T20Is, he then will move ahead Don Bradman’s record of 974 runs he scored in 1930, which is the second-highest number of runs scored by a batsman on a tour.
However, if he scores 176 more, he will then surpass Sir Viv Richards to score more than 1045 runs on a single tour. Currently, Sir Richards is the only batsman to have more than 1000 runs on a single tour. He achieved the feat during West Indies’ 1976 tour of England when he scored 1045 runs (829 in four Tests, 216 runs in three ODIs).
