By Priscilla Jepchumba
Virat Kohli, the batting powerhouse, has retired from T20Is, so the audience will be able to watch the 35-year-old player play only in Tests and ODIs. As expected, all the focus will be on Virat Kohli during the ongoing Test series against Bangladesh starting on September 19.
People love to draw parallels between Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar. Kohli always said Tendulkar is in a league of his own. The Indian captain has scored 80 international centuries to date, which is the second highest in the world after the legendary master blaster Tendulkar. Although doing so may take some time, Kohli got the chance to equal a world record during the Bangladesh Test series.
He is 58 runs away from reaching the 27000 international cricket playing run mark. Tendulkar holds the record of reaching the fastest 27000 international cricket runs in 623 innings, 226 tests, 396 ODIs, and 1 T20 International Innings. As of now, Virat Kohli has 29 Test centuries. If he manages to score a century in the upcoming match, he will exceed Don Bradman’s record of 29 Test centuries.
He has scored 26942 runs in 591 innings across all the formats of the game so far. If Kohli can amass 58 Runs in his next eight innings, that seems possible. He will be the first cricketer to achieve 27000 runs in less than 600 innings in the 147 years of international cricket.
Only Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting of Australia, and Kumar Sangakkara of the Sri Lankan team have scored more than twenty-seven thousand runs in international cricket. Further, there is a potential for the Afro-Asia Cup to return. If the tournament is to be conducted again, fans may get to witness Kohli batting with Azam or Afridi bowling alongside Bumrah.
In order to become the 4th highest run-scorer against Bangladesh, Virat Kohli has amassed 437 runs against them, positioning him in fifth place on the list of top run-scorers against Bangladesh. He only needs 31 more runs to surpass Cheteshwar Pujara and claim the fourth position on the list.
