Virat Kohli becomes second Indian after Sachin Tendulkar to hit 50 international tons

Courtesy: PTI

New Delhi: Team India skipper Virat Kohli's purple patch continued as he slammed his 18th Test century during the first Test against Sri Lanka at Eden Gardens on Monday. 

With this, he also became the second Indian batsman after Sachin Tendulkar to register 50 international hundreds. 

In the list of most number of international centuries, Kohli is now at the eight spot behind Brian Lara who has 53.

However, with 18 Test hundreds, Kohli has now raced ahead of Dilip Vengsarkar tally of 17.

He is currently sixth on the list of Indians with the most number of Test centuries. Only Mohammed Azharuddin (22), Virender Sehwag (23), Sunil Gavaskar (34), Rahul Dravid (36) and Sachin Tendulkar (51) are ahead of him.

In the list of fastest players to reach 50 centuries in International cricket, Kohli equalled Hashim Amla’s record of achieving it in 348 innings.

Sachin Tendulkar stands second with 376 innings.

In terms of averages, Kohli is currently the only batsman in the world to average more than 50 in all three formats.

In Tests, he averages 50.13 while in ODIs he averages 55.74 and 52.86 in T20s.

In the list of most centuries as a skipper, the 29-year-old has equalled former India skipper Sunil Gavaskar’s tally of 11.

In 2017, Virat Kohli has already scored 9 international hundreds. Only former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting and Steve Smith have achieved the feat so far.

Incidentally, Kohli’s last hundred had also come against Sri Lanka, during the Lankan tour in July.

Ironically, Kohli is the also the first Indian captain to score a duck and a century in the same Test.

Meanwhile, the Test match at Eden Gardens also witnessed a rare phenomenon where all the opposition wickets were picked up by the Indian seamers.

This is the first time that not a single wicket was bagged by an Indian spinner in a Test match.