The King of India cricket, Virat Kohli, is now only behind the legend Sachin Tendulkar. Kohli, returning to his favourite format after a month-long gap, had Kumar Sangakkara in his sights and another major milestone in the IND vs NZ 1st ODI in Vadodara. He needed 16 runs to become only the second batter to score 28000 international runs and needed 41 to surpass the Sri Lankan great to become the second-highest run-getter in international cricket. Kohli wasted no time.
In ODI format, Virat Kohli is 3800 runs behind Sachin Tendulkar. He has already surpassed Tendulkar’s tally of most ODI centuries with 53 tons.
Virat Kohli fastest to 28000 runs
Coming into the match with 25 runs needed to get to 28000 runs, he achieved the milestone during the 13th over of the India innings. With this, the Delhi-born also became the quickest to reach there in just 624 innings, bettering Sachin Tendulkar (644 innings) and Kumar Sangakkara (666 innings). Shortly afterwards, the Indian legend went past Sangakkara in the 19th over of the run chase.
While Virat Kohli may be too far away from surpassing Sachin Tendulkar, among active cricketers, no one is close to Kohli either. Having retired from two formats, Kohli’s only opportunity to don the India jersey comes in the ODI format, which is not played often.
The next two cricketers who are in contention are Steve Smith and Joe Root. While Root is the closest contender to surpass Tendulkar’s tally of Test runs, he is not even close to the total tally. Root has 22166 runs in international cricket. Australian Steve Smith can also surpass Tendulkar’s Test runs tally, but overall, he has only 17236 runs. So, Tendulkar’s record of most international runs is safe for now.
Most runs in International cricket
| Player | Matches | Innings | Runs | HS | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sachin Tendulkar | 664 | 782 | 34357 | 248* | 48.52 |
| Virat Kohli | 556 | 624 | 28017* | 254* | 52.58 |
| Kumar Sangakkara | 594 | 666 | 28016 | 319 | 46.77 |
| Ricky Ponting | 560 | 668 | 27483 | 257 | 45.95 |
| Mahela Jayawardene | 652 | 725 | 25957 | 374 | 39.15 |
| Jaques Kallis | 519 | 617 | 25534 | 224 | 49.1 |
| Rahul Dravid | 509 | 605 | 24208 | 270 | 45.41 |
| Brian Lara | 430 | 521 | 22358 | 400* | 46.28 |
| Joe Root | 381 | 503 | 22166* | 262 | 49.36 |
| Sanath Jayasuriya | 586 | 651 | 21032 | 340 | 34.14 |
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