India skipper Virat Kohli not only brought up his 25th Test century at the Optus Stadium in Perth on Sunday, but also sent the records crazy cricket fans on the hunt to find the new milestones he registered in the process. And by the looks of it, King Kohli has indeed prepared a delicious dossier for his fans. Kohli’s 25th ton is the 18th as captain, 14th in away Tests, 7th against Australia, 6th in Australia and his 5th in 2018.
The knock saw Kohli go past Mohammad Yousuf and Vivian Richards in the most Test centuries tally and he joins former Pakistan skipper Inzamam-ul-Haq with 25 Test hundreds. This was also his 10th away Test century as captain for Kohli — second most.
His love for Australia as an opposition is well documented and this knock in the first innings of the second Test of the four-match series against the Aussies saw Kohli register his fourth Test century against them as captain. This is now the joint most for a visiting captain.
Interestingly, Kohli also joined Graeme Smith and Clive Lloyd in the list of most Test hundreds by a visiting captain in a country.
Known for his penchant to score big, Kohli’s 25th Test century is also his 63rd international century. He is now behind Sachin Tendulkar (100) and Ricky Ponting (71) in the all-time list. Kohli joins Kumar Sangakkara. He now has 34 centuries as captain and is behind just Ponting as the former Australia skipper has 41 international centuries.
This isn’t all. Kohli is the first Indian, first non-Australia and fourth batsman to hit 5 centuries in consecutive years. Kohli is also now only the second captain with 5 centuries in consecutive years after Ricky Ponting. The former Australia skipper achieved the feat in 2005 and 2006.
Kohli also became the 10th cricketer to score 5000 Test runs at the No.4 position. He is the third Indian batsman to achieve the feat after Gundappa Viswanath and Sachin Tendulkar. India pacer Ishant Sharma gave the perfect compliment to Kohli on Saturday when he said: “Whenever Virat is batting we feel confident. We finished the day in a strong position. Hopefully they will both continue. The game is in the balance right now. Hopefully we will dominate the first session tomorrow.”
First Published: Dec 16, 2018 09:28 IST
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