Virat Kohli completes 9000 runs in Test cricket

Virat Kohli scored his first Test fifty of the calendar year on Day 3 of the Bengaluru Test against New Zealand on Friday (October 18). However, after scoring three more runs after his fifty, i.e. upon reaching 53, the 35-year-old notched up 9000 runs in Test cricket. He is now only the fourth Indian batter to score 9000 runs in Test cricket. 

Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, and Rahul Dravid are the other three Indian players to reach the milestone. All of them went on to score 10,000 Test runs for India. Gavaskar was in fact the first batter worldwide to breach this barrier. 

Overall, Kohli is the 18th batter to reach there. He has gotten there in his 116th Test, playing his 197th Test innings. 

Kohli has had an indifferent time in Test cricket of late. He averaged only 26.2 between 2019 and 2022. In 2023, he improved on his numbers, averaging 55.9. But this year, having played little Test cricket though, he averaged only 26.2 again before the start of this innings. 

Kohli was out for a nine-ball duck in the first innings. In the second, he took 15 balls ton get off the mark. But once he did, he looked in excellent touch with India facing a mountainous task to make a comeback into this Test. 

Kohli is only 94 runs short of 14,000 runs in ODI cricket. Overall, he has more than 27,000 runs in international cricket. 

Unfortunately, Kohli was out on the last ball of the day. Having batted well for his 70, the former skipper got a faint edge on a straight delivery from the off-spinner Glenn Phillips that had some extra bounce. 

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