Former India captain Virat Kohli became the quickest to surpass the 25,000 run mark in international cricket during the second innings of the third Test against Australia in Delhi. Kohli took 549 innings across formats to do so, 28 innings quicker than Sachin Tendulkar (577). Later in the tally were Ricky Ponting (588), Jacques Kallis (594), Kumar Sangakkara (608), and Mahela Jayawerdene (701).
T20 and ODI World Cup winner with India, Gautam Gambhir went on to praise the 34-year-old for the feat, placing his numbers over others in terms of success across differing conditions.
“I don’t know about the list but the best part of Virat Kohli is that he has performed the same in India and in Australia, in South Africa. There will be an Australian or a South African in the list but you have to compare their numbers in the subcontinent as well. Kohli is a master of the 50-overs format but in Test cricket too he has scored 27 hundreds, and 28 fifties. He has centuries in England, Australia, South Africa, West Indies. What more can you achieve?” Gambhir said on Star Sports.
He further added, “Scoring 25 thousand runs is no joke. He has seen a lot of ups and downs but has remained consistent. Your game goes through a lot of changes. Your stance changes, your technique changes, your strengths and weaknesses change, your mode of dismissals become different, your emotions change and if you can factor in all of that, control all these things and score these many runs then you are a great.”
While Kohli has 8195 runs in 106 Tests, he has also scored 12809 runs in 271 ODIs and 4008 in the 115 T20Is he’s featured for India. This includes 74 centuries across the three formats.