Almost a month back, the Indian skipper Virat Kohli surpassed the record of legendary batsman Sachin Tendulkar to become the fastest batsman to reach the 10,000-run mark in ODIs. He did it in the home series against the Windies in which he slammed three consecutive hundreds and achieved the milestone playing 53 matches and 54 innings less than the Master Blaster. Now, yet another record held by Sachin is asking to be surpassed in the upcoming Test series against Australia and none other than Virat is the best man to do it.
Tendulkar, who played as many as five Test series in Australia since 1991-92, in which he has scored six tons there with the highest being 241* scored in Sydney in 2003-04. Kohli, on the other hand, is on his third tour of that country and he already has amassed five centuries there. Another successful outing this time and the Indian skipper will better Tendulkar’s tally of centuries on the Australian soil. Kohli’s highest score in Tests in Australia is 169 which he made in Melbourne in 2014.
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In terms of averages, however, Kohli is ahead of Tendulkar (62 to 53.20) and has 992 runs in eight matches as against 1,809 from 20 by the latter. Virat is tied with another legendary Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar in terms of scoring Test centuries in Australia at the moment and will better him the moment he scores his sixth and equals Tendulkar. VVS Laxman has four centuries in Australia.
Four of Kohli’s five-Test centuries in Australia came in the 2014-15 series as the batsman when he also led the Indian team in two of the four Tests of the series that India lost 0-2, as he scored as many as 692 runs, though falling behind Australian captain Steve Smith (769 runs).
Team India will lock horns with Australia in the first Test of the series in Adelaide starting December 6. The other three Tests will be played in Perth (Dec 14-18), Melbourne (Dec 26-30) and Sydney (January 3-7, 2019).