Pune, Oct 11: India's batting mainstay Virat Kohli ended a drought of 10 innings to slam his first Test century in the year 2019 after getting into the triple-figure mark on day two of Pune Test against South Africa on Friday (October 11). The last time a hundred came from the bat of the Indian swashbuckler was at Perth in December 2018.
Kohli went on to convert his century into a double hundred and entered slammed his seventh 200-plus total in the longer format of the game. This is
With this, Kohli equalled Australia star batsman Steve Smith to complete 26th Test century and second fastest Indian batsman after Sachin Tendulkar to this milestone.
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Virat Kohli scores his 26th Test century against South Africa, equals Steve Smith
Kohli has slammed 21 tons in ODIs as captain of the Indian Cricket Team while in the longer format of the game he has notched up 19 centuries. The 30-year-old swashbuckler is yet to score a century in the T20Is.
Second-fastest Indian to 26 tons in Test
Tendulkar - who owns the record of hitting most number of Test centuries i.e. 51 - took 136 innings to get to his 26th ton while Kohli took 138 innings to this milestone.
Fewest innings to 26 Test 100s:
69 Don Bradman
121 Steve Smith
136 Sachin Tendulkar
138 Virat Kohli
144 Sunil Gavaskar
145 Matthew Hayden
40 international tons
With that ton in Pune, Kohli completed 40 international centuries and became the only Indian to this milestone. He's only behind former Australia captain Rick Ponting's record of 41 international tons, which is the most by any captain. Ponting slammed 19 tons in Tests and 22 in ODIs as the captain of Australian side.
Equals another Ponting record as captain
In Test cricket, the 30-year-old has slammed 19 tons as captain and to equal Ponting. He's now only behind former South Africa captain Graeme Smith's world record of 25 Test centuries as a captain.
Most as Test captain
— Mohandas Menon (@mohanstatsman) October 11, 2019
200+ scores : Virat Kohli (6)
150+ scores : Virat Kohli (9)
100+ scores : Graeme Smith (25), followed by Ponting/Kohli (19 each)#IndvSA #IndvsSA
Goes past the 'Don'
After completing his 150 against the Proteas in Pune, Kohli also surpassed Sir Don Bradman's major record in Tests. Kohli now has 9 150-plus scores in the longer format of the game while Don Bradman had played 150-plus innings on 8 such occasions.