Indian skipper Virat Kohli is batting on a different planet since the January 2016 when he toured Down Under for five ODIs and three T20Is. He was the leading international run-scorer last year with around 2500 runs and Kohli is doing the same thing this time around as well with over 2200 runs in international cricket. Thus, he is the leading run-scorer in this year as well as one and a half month is still left in 2017.
Currently, Kohli has 2208 runs in 47 innings at an average of around 60. Hashim Amla is the next contender in this tally with 2073 runs in 44 innings and Joe Root is his follower with 1855 runs at an average of 63.96 in 34 innings. With Amla will not play any international game in this year, he will stay behind Virat. But, Root will feature in the much-awaited Ashes series, which will be spiced up this tally as well.
With such glittering stats this year, the Indian captain has surpassed each and every former Indian skipper in terms of most runs in a calendar year while leading the team. Kohli leapfrogged Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar in this list, who all touched 2000-run mark but couldn’t cross 2,100-run mark.
Kohli comes at one down in ODIs and bats on number four in the Test cricket, where Sachin Tendulkar used to play during his days. Since after his retirement, Virat has cemented his place on this position with some immense batting numbers at number 4. He has scored 13 centuries so far on this position along with just 6 fifties. Thus, he records a conversion rate of 68.42% at number four, which made him best at this position in the Test matches.
Interestingly, Sachin Tendulkar has never scored two Test hundreds in a single Test match and just after his retirement, Kohli touched this feat and became India first number four do so. He was close to double this feat but fell short by 4 runs in Johannesburg against South Africa.
Meanwhile, Kohli eyes to strengthen his Test numbers in 2017 with Sri Lanka Test series will commence tomorrow in Kolkata. He may miss the rest of this series post first three Tests, thus Sri Lankan bowlers have to watch out for him.
