Virat Kohli achieved this milestone in his 490th innings across all formats, which is 32 innings less than the cricketing legend and Kohli’s idol Sachin Tendulkar.
Despite the unending wait for a noteworthy big score in cricket, its very difficult to keep the Captain of the Indian Team Virat Kohli away from record books.
In a major milestone, Indian skipper Virat Kohli became the fastest player to score 23,000 runs in international cricket on Thursday.
Kohli achieved this feat in his 490th innings played on day one of the 4th Test against England.
He was on 22,999 at the start of his innings when he cracked a stunning four against his nemesis James Anderson’s bowling to go past the 23,000 runs landmark in his 490th innings in international cricket.
Kohli looked pretty solid in this innings where he went on to score his 27th Test Fifty from 96 balls smashing eight boundaries before he was eventually dismissed by fast bowler Ollie Robinson on the exact score of 50.
Whom did he Surpass?
Kohli achieved this milestone in his 490th innings across all formats, which is 32 innings less than what the cricketing legend and Kohli’s idol Sachin Tendulkar took to get to the same milestone who achieved this in his 522nd innings.
Third on the list is the former Australian captain-batsman Ricky Ponting who went past this milestone in his 544th innings. He is followed by the former South African all-rounder Jacques Kallis who took 551 innings to reach 23,000 runs in international cricket.
The only other Indian player apart from Sachin and Kohli to score more than 23,000 international runs is Rahul Dravid. The Indian legend took 576 innings to achieve this landmark.
Overall, Kohli is only the 7th batsman in the history of international cricket who has achieved this feat.
Total Runs Scored
Overall, Sachin Tendulkar is the leading run scorer in international cricket with a total of 34,357 runs, followed by Kumar Sangakkara who has scored 28,016 runs and Ricky Ponting who scored 27,483 runs.
Virat Kohli is currently placed at number seven in the overall list and is closing on Rahul Dravid’s record of 24,208 runs.
He is also the third highest run scorer for India across formats behind only Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid.
The 32 year old Indian captain averages above 50 in all three formats.
In 96 Tests, he has accumulated 13,646 runs whereas in 254 ODIs, he has scored 13,061 runs. In 89 T20Is, he has smashed 2,272 runs.
Current Form
However, Virat Kohli is having a rough patch considering the usual standards he has set for himself.
Kohli reached his career-best test average of 55.10 in his 81st Test where he scored a prolific 254 against South Africa in October 2019.
However, since then, in the next 14 Tests he has averaged a paltry 28.
He has not scored a century in test cricket for almost two years since November 2019.
He is also facing troubles facing the swinging bowls bowled by skillful bowlers like James Anderson, Ollie Robinson, etc. and has been dismissed outside off quite a number of times in the recent series against England.
He is also facing flak against some of his captaincy decisions such as not playing the Number 2 Test Bowler Ravichandran Ashwin in any of the four test matches so far.
