The Indian captain Virat Kohli has added another feather in his glorious cap as he has become the second Indian batsman to score 3000 runs in Australia. Kohli equalled Sachin Tendulkar’s record, who had scored 3300 runs in Australia. Kohli now has 3052 runs across the three formats while playing Down Under.
The talisman achieved the milestone during his 85-run knock in the third T20I against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Tuesday. But, Kohli’s knock went in vain as India lost by 12 runs. However, India was able to clinch the T20I series by 2-1 as they had won the first two matches by 11 runs and six wickets respectively.
The 32-year-old also became the sixth foreign player to reach the 3,000-run mark in Australia. The talisman joins an elite club of batsmen such as Sir Vivian Richards, Desmond Haynes, David Gower, Brian Lara and Tendulkar. Richards tops the list with 4,529 runs from 95 games.
Meanwhile, earlier Virat Kohli had bettered Sachin Tendulkar’s record as he had become the fastest to reach the 12000 run mark in the ODI format. Tendulkar had taken 300 innings whereas Kohli took only 242 innings to get to the milestone. Furthermore, Kohli had also become the fastest to reach 22000 International runs.
Kohli took only 462 innings to get to 22000 International runs whereas Tendulkar had taken 493 runs to score the same number of runs. Thus, Kohli has been one of the consistent batsmen in the current era.
On the other hand, Australia had clinched the ODI series by 2-1 but the visitors made a fine comeback in the T20I series. Both the teams will now lock in a four-match Test series and the first Test match, which will be a Day-Night contest, will take place at Adelaide Oval from December 17.
Kohli will head back to India to be with his wife for the birth of his first child. Ajinkya Rahane will lead the team in Kohli’s absence.
