Virat Kohli Becomes Fastest Indian Captain to Reach 1,000 Test runs outside India
Jul 28, 2017 at 6:21 PM
Indian captain Virat Kohli has been a prolific run scorer for India across all 3 formats and has already broken many records in the process. In the ongoing Test against Sri Lanka in Galle, Kohli reached yet another landmark and became the fastest Indian captain to reach 1,000 Test runs outside India. He reached the 1,000 run mark in 17 innings beating Sachin Tendulkar’s record which was 19 innings.
Kohli hasn’t been in the greatest of the form of late especially in the longest format of the game and performed pretty poorly in India’s 2-1 series victory against Australia at home earlier in the year. It was the last series India played before coming to Sri Lanka and the captain would have hoped to revive his form. Though he managed to score only 3 in the 1st innings, he came back strongly and scored a half-century in the 2nd essay to put India in a commanding position.
Kohli’s 1st Test as a captain came in late 2014 at Adelaide when the regular captain MS Dhoni was suspended and he almost played a match winning knock to announce his arrival as a Test captain in a stunning fashion. He then toured Bangladesh for his first tour as a full-time captain and managed only 14 in the solitary innings he played in the one-off Test.
India then flew to Sri Lanka for a 3 match Test series and Kohli began with a brilliant century in his very 1st innings but faltered from there on. Barring a 78 in the 2nd Test, he was unable to get going and got a string of low scores. India’s next foreign tour was in West Indies a year later and Kohli again played a sensational knock in the very 1st Test itself.
The Modern Master struck his maiden Test double century in the opening Test but couldn’t quite carry on his good work in the remainder of the series. Following the West Indies series, India’s long and gruelling home season began where they played 13 Tests against New Zealand, England, Bangladesh and Australia and won each of the series.
In the ongoing series, Kohli will definitely look to add some more runs to his kitty and get his rhythm back in the Test format.