Virat Kohli in action during the first Test. (BCCI)While the South African bowlers were bowling thunderbolts on a green pitch, Virat Kohli played a brilliant counter-attacking 76 on Thursday. Though the team lost by a huge margin, the Indian batter, during his sublime knock, added another record to his illustrious career.
The 35-year-old has now gone past 2000 runs in a calendar year for the seventh time in his career. No other batter could achieve the feat in the 146 years of cricket (Since the records have been kept). He previously achieved the feat in 2012 (2186 runs), 2014 (2286 runs), 2016 (2595 runs), 2017 (2818 runs), 2018 (2735 runs), and 2019 (2455 runs).
The Indian talisman scored 2048 runs this year. The batter is behind his teammate for the most runs in this calendar year, 2023, as Shubman Gill amassed 2154 runs this year.
Kohli played a lone hand in the second innings of the first Test and received no support from the other batters. Indian team took a pasting as they lost the game by an innings and 32 runs.
After two years of dip in form, the star batter has returned to his scintillating best this year. Though India could not win the World Cup, Kohli was awarded the Man Of the Tournament award for being the leading run scorer in the tournament with 765 runs.
During the India-New Zealand ODI World Cup semifinal, Kohli became the first player to claim 50 ODI hundreds. In doing so, he overtook Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar in the tally for most centuries in the format.
Tendulkar, who hung his boots a decade ago, had scored 49 tons across the 50 overs format and 51 more in the Tests. On the other hand, Kohli has 29 triple-digit scores and one more T20I hundred to go with his ODI tons, making for an overall 80 centuries in international cricket.
It wasn’t the only record held by Tendulkar that Kohli broke on the day, as he also went on to cross the former’s tally of 673 runs – most in a single ODI World Cup.
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