Kohli reaches another Milestone, joins 5000-club in Test cricket

New Delhi: Indian cricket team skipper Virat Kohli on Saturday reached another milestone of his illustrious career joining 5000 runs-club in his 63th Test match.

He became the 11th batsman to achieve the feat in his 105th Test innings at the Feroz Shah Kotla ground, less by ten innings compared to fastest in 95 innings by Sunil Gavaskar. Still, the class and tenacity which Virat showed has already put him in the bracket of greats the game has seen.

Virat had his Test aggregate of 4,975 runs before going in for this match and he completed 5000 runs when he scored 25 runs.

He also completed his 20th Test hundred during the course of the first day of the third and final match of the series. At the end of 71 overs, Kohli was batting at 117 runs at a phenomenal strike rate of 84.17. He has taken just 139 deliveries and has laced his flawless inning with 15 boundaries.

Earlier in recent past, the Indian masterclass has crossed total number of 50 tons in Tests and One Day Internationals and registered over 50 average in all three formats of the game.

The former players who have scored 5000 runs in Test cricket included Sunil Gavaskar, Virendra Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Dilip Vengsarkar, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, GR Vishwanath, Mohd Azharuddin and Kapil Dev.

Virat has also scored 32 centuries in ODI and 20 in Tests at a brisk conversion rate compared to other greats in contemporary cricket. He also became the first captain ever to score three consecutive hundred-plus scores in a three-Test series.

He had earlier scored a brilliant hundred in the second inning of the first Test to put India into a winning position, and continued his momentum with fifth career double-ton within a span of a year in the second Test. He has again scored a century in the third Test and has every possibility to convert it into the sixth career double hundred.