New Delhi: Star Indian batter Virat Kohli on Friday became the first Indian player to achieve a unique batting record during the third day of the first Test played at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. The former Indian captain was promoted to bat at No.3 after youngster Shubman Gill missed from India’s playing XI owing to troubles with his neck before the match.
Though Kohli endured failure in the first innings after change in batting position, departing for a nine-ball duck, the Indian batting icon played an excellent innings (70 runs from 102 balls) in pursuit of India’s fightback after a horrendous show in the first innings.
The recent imperious knock helped Kohli to complete more than 15,000 runs batting in the No.3 position across all formats of international cricket. He joined the likes of former Australian captain Ricky Ponting (22869 runs), former Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara (22011 runs), and New Zealand batter Kane Williamson (15696 runs) to score more than 15,000 runs at No.3 in internationals.
Here’s Virat Kohli’s breakdown of 15,000 runs at No.3 in international cricket
Virat Kohli started in the middle order in white ball formats during his formative years of international cricket. During his first major tournament, which was the victorious 2011 World Cup, he was slotted to bat in No.4 position in the marquee event.
After the retirements of some of the senior players, Kohli moved up to bat at No.3 in MS Dhoni’s new-looking white-ball teams, though he continued to bat at No.4 in Tests with the availability of a resolute player of Cheteshwar Pujara at that stage.
The recent change in batting adjustment was only the fifth match for the 35-year-old to bat at No.3 in the red-ball format. In a total of eight innings, Kohli has made 167 runs at an average of 23.85 in the designated slot.
The numbers are highly contrasting from his white-ball stints. In 228 ODI innings, the star Indian player has amassed 11785 runs at 61.06 with the help of 43 centuries and 62 fifties. He has scored 3076 runs out of his 4188 T20I runs while batting at No.3. Overall, Kohli has accumulated 15,002 runs in his record to bat at No.3.
