Mumbai: If we talk about the current crop of batsmen, there are not too many better than Virat Kohli. The Indian Test skipper, who has scored chunk of runs across formats in 2016, added one more feather to his cap as he completed 1000 Test runs in the calendar year during the third’s day play of the fourth India versus England Test in Mumbai on Saturday.
Playing his 11th Test this year, Kohli took 17 innings to join the likes of Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root and Alastair Cook in the list of cricketers who have scored 1000 runs or more in 2016.
Kohli also became the 14th Indian cricketer to have scored 4000 runs in the longer format of the game as India looked in firm control against the Alastair Cook and Co. The feat put him in an elite company of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sunil Gavaskar, VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly amongst other Indian greats.
Although Murali Vijay’s classy hundred (136) was a treat for cricket fans, Kohli’s knock is pivotal as India struggled to get past England’s first innings total after Root’s double strike, which included R Ashwin and Parthiv Patel’s dismissals in quick succession, jolted India’s progress.
While his Test form has been exemplary in 2016, his numbers from ODIs and T20Is have been spectacular as well. In 10 ODIs this year, he has scored 739 runs at an average of 92.37 and has slammed 3 tons. In T20Is, Kohli, who won Man of the Tournament at ICC World T20 2016, has 641 runs against his name from 15 games in 2016. Add 973 runs in the IPL 2016 where he led Royal Challengers Bangalore to the finals.
If India manage to tame England one more time in the ongoing five-match Test series, Kohli, the batsman, would be a very happy man having played a big part.
