Virat Kohli slams 20th Test century as Indian captain, goes past Ricky Ponting

Tags: Bangladesh tour of India 2019, India Vs Bangladesh,2nd Test at Kolkata, Nov 22-26, 2019, India, Bangladesh

Published on: Nov 25, 2019

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Indian captain Virat Kohli continued his dream run in international cricket notching up his 27th Test century on the second day of the Day-Night Test against Bangladesh at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Saturday. Kohli’s 136 saw India declaring their innings at 347 for 9 in reply to Bangladesh’s paltry 106

With the latest century, Kohli has moved ahead of another great, Australia’s Ricky Ponting, on the list of captains with most Test centuries. While Kohli now has 20 hundreds as captain of the Indian Test team, Ponting finished his illustrious career with 19 hundreds as Test captain of Australia. Graeme Smith, who was the South African Test captain for almost the entire duration of his career, tops the Iist with 25 hundreds for his country.

Following his hundred, the 31-year-old also became the first Indian to hit a hundred in a Day-Night Test. This was a day after Ishant Sharma became the first Indian bowler to take a five-wicket haul. On Friday, Kohli became the first Indian captain to register 5,000 Test runs, and also the fastest skipper in international cricket to do so. He went past the landmark in 86 innings. The previous record was in the name of Ponting, who got there in 97 innings.

In terms of Test captains with most runs, Kohli is now at number six in the list behind Graeme Smith, Allan Border, Ricky Ponting, Clive Lloyd and Stephen Fleming. The Kolkata hundred was also Kohli’s 70th in international cricket. Tendulkar and Ponting are the only other batsmen with more than 70 international hundreds

After registering a rare duck at Indore, Kohli hit 18 fours in his knock of 136 at Kolkata, which came off 194 deliveries. Kohli, with 7,202 runs, is now just 11 runs away from surpassing Sourav Ganguly (7,212 runs) on the list of Indian batsmen with most Test runs.

--Renin Wilben Albert

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