ICC CWC'19: Virat Kohli close to breaking Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara's record
During the match against Pakistan, Kohli had overtaken Sachin to be the quickest to score 11,000 ODI runs.
Mumbai: Indian captain Virat Kohli is breaking Sachin Tendulkar’s every record. Kohli might not be aware of this fact, but he’s literally on the verge of breaking Sachin’s every record in his path. No matter, how much big or small the record is, Kohli takes Sachin’s record and breaks it.
We have witnessed that in the 2019 World Cup too. During the match against Pakistan, Kohli had overtaken Sachin to be the quickest to score 11,000 ODI runs. And in the match against Afghanistan, Mr Chase master will be breaking two records in a single match.
Kohli is just 104 runs short of scoring 20,000 international runs. If he manages to touch that figure, then, he will become the 12th batsman to reach this milestone. Kohli will be the third Indian after Sachin and Rahul Dravid who have scored 34,357 and 24,208 runs respectively.
Kohli, who has amassed 11020 ODI runs, 6613 Test runs and 2263 T20I runs, will be the quickest to reach the figure. He will not only cross Tendulkar, but will also cross Brian Lara who also had notched up 20,000 international runs in 453 innings along with Sachin. Both Sachin and Lara took 453 innings to register 20,000 international runs.
Kohli, who so far, has played only 415 innings – 131 Test, 222 ODIs and 62 T20Is – will beat Tendulkar and Lara by an enormous margin. Australian World Cup winning captain Ricky Ponting who took 468 innings to touch that mark, features third in the list.
Coming to Kohli’s performance in 2019 World Cup, Kohli so far, has been in good touch, but he’s yet to show his true potential despite having scored two match winning innings (82 against Australia and 77 against Pakistan). In the up-coming match against Afghanistan, Kohli would be looking to reach that milestone by striking a ton.
Nonetheless, India will be missing the services of ‘Mr ICC’ (Shikhar Dhawan) who has been ruled out of the marquee event after sustaining a thumb injury. Dhawan’s injury would force India to rely on Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli to guide India towards a commanding stage, and help MS Dhoni and Hardik Pandya to provide a finishing touch.