Virat Kohli averages above 50 in all formats of Cricket

Galle: Do you know why the Indian 'run-machine' Virat Kohli is often rated the best amongst the modern day batting greats, a list that includes Australia's Steve Smith, England's Joe Root and New Zealand's Kane Williamson? We have a genuine reason to back Kohli in the biggest debate of cricketing world right now.

The team India skipper on Saturday completed his 17^th hundred in Test Cricket, which came in his 58^th match. En route to the masterpiece ton, he set up a unique milestone of averaging above 50 in all three formats of the sport, a record which was apparently never ever held by any other great.

Currently, Virat Kohli is averaging 50+ in Tests, 54.68 in One Day Internationals (ODIs) and 52.96 in Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is).

Virat Kohli's batting average across all three formats of Cricket:

Tests – 50+

ODIs – 54.68

T20Is – 52.96

Steve Smith's batting average across all formats of Cricket:

Tests – 61.05

ODIs – 44.26

T20Is – 21.55

Also Read: SL vs Ind, 1st Test: Kohli picks up another stump as India beats Sri Lanka

Joe Root's batting average across all formats of Cricket:

Tests – 53.57

ODIs – 49.37

T20Is – 40.33

Kane Williamson's batting average across all formats of Cricket:

Tests – 51.16

ODIs – 46.98

T20Is – 36.29

The stats clearly show that when it comes to dealing the bowlers in different forms of the game, Virat Kohli is far better than his competitors and has a better understanding of every format.

Apart from the unique milestone, Kohli also went past several records which were earlier held by the greats like Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar and Dilip Vengasarkar. Checkout the other records below:

• It was his first ever century while batting in the third inning of a Test match.
• Kohli equalled former Indian batting great Dilip Vengsarkar's record of 17 hundreds in Test Cricket. Surprisingly, Vengsarkar had touched the milestone in 116 Tests while Kohli has touched the feat in exactly half number of matches – 58^th
• It was his first hundred after a gap of seven innings in which he could not even touch the 50-run mark (38, 0, 13, 12, 15, 6 and 3). His last hundred came in one-off Test match against Bangladesh during home season when he had scored 204 runs.
• He also became the first Indian captain to score 10 hundreds in only 27 matches. He surpassed the record of Little Master Sunil Gavaskar who had nine tons in as many matches.
• Former Indian skippers Sachin Tendulkar and Mohammad Azharuddin had scored seven centuries each while staying captain after 27 matches.
• Kohli went past another record of Tendulkar by scoring sixth century as captain on the foreign turf. Tendulkar had five tons in away Test while being the captain of the side.
• Kohli also notched up 1000 runs as skipper in Tests on foreign soil. He is the quickest to achieve the feat among Indians as he took just 17 innings, while Tendulkar had taken 19 innings to score equal number of runs as captain.

India, due to his brilliant hundred and a solid 81-run knock by Abhinav Mukund, gave a huge target of 550 runs to Sri Lanka. The hosts fell 304 runs short of the target giving 0-1 lead to the visiting Indian team in the three-match series. It may be mentioned that it is India's biggest victory in away Tests in terms of runs.