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After more than 2 years of struggling with the bat, the Indian batting sensation Virat Kohli has returned to his best with consecutive fifties in the ongoing T20 World Cup. Make no mistake, he scored more runs than most batters in world cricket during this struggling phase.
While he deservingly pulled all the attention toward him after his chasing masterclass against Pakistan last week, he has broken several records and re-written history pages en route to immortality.
Despite being a man of big occasions, Kohli’s bat has seldom smiled in the ICC ODI World Cups. However, T20 World Cups have been different stories altogether. With a truckload of runs and two player of the tournament awards to his name, Virat Kohli is unrivalled in this global tournament.
Let’s start with the best one. Kohli is the best batter when chasing a total in any format; his stats will speak for him. However, in T20 World Cups, he has taken his game to an almost untouchable level.
In India’s 9 successful chases in world T20s when Kohli batted, the chase master has scored 518 runs smashing 7 half-centuries, with an out-of-the-world average of 518! Opponent bowlers have been able to get him out only once while chasing in these matches.
Well, here’s the cherry on top. While pulling off chases with Bradman-esque stats, Virat Kohli remained unbeaten in 18 T20Is, winning all of them for India.
Virat Kohli has featured in 23 games in World T20s for India. Batting in 21 innings, he has scored 989 runs (till the Netherlands game), striking at 132, with a whopping average of 89. He is now only 28 runs away from becoming the leading scorer of World T20s. The list is currently led by Lankan legend Mahela Jayawardene who scored 1016 runs from 31 games in the global tournament.
However, Kohli has already edged past his teammate Rohit Sharma to become the leading run-scorer in T20Is with 3856 in 111 matches. His closest competitor, Sharma, has 3794 runs in 144 matches.
Third, fourth and fifth spots on this list are occupied by New Zealand opener Martin Guptill (3,531), Pakistan star Babar Azam (3,231), and the Irish skipper Paul Stirling (3,119), respectively.
Kohli also holds the record for scoring the highest number of half-centuries (12) in T20 World Cups and in T20Is overall (36).
If you are already tired of reading his records, here’s another interesting record broken by Virat Kohli – a record that seemed to be well out of reach once when the legendary batter Sachin Tendulkar made it.
Kohli now has the highest number of 50+ scores (25) in ICC events since the steller 82 (53) against Pakistan, surpassing Sachin’s 23.
He has played a combined total of 61 games in ICC events and scored 2,486 runs in 60 innings at an average of 60.63, with 2 centuries and 23 half-centuries.
Among all the T20Is and World Cup stats, Virat Kohli has added another pinion to his record book. Surpassing Indian legend Rahul Dravid’s 24208 runs (509 matches), Kohli is now the 6th highest run-getter in Internation cricket in all formats with 24212 runs (474 matches). He has Protea legend Jacques Kallis well within reach, who has 25534 runs in international cricket in 519 matches.
Virat Kohli has already cemented his position as one of the greatest batters ever to grace the game. Fans can only hope that he continues at his best for a few more years and creates many more records they can bring into their cricketing gossip.