Watch: How captain Virat Kohli prepped for 29th happy birthday with brilliant fifty

Courtesy: IANS

New Delhi: It was not supposed to be the best of his birthday's but, captain Virat Kohli was doing what he does best during India's second T20I match against New Zealand in Rajkot on Saturday.

Chasing a 197-run target, India lost both the openers inside the second over. But Kohli, the 'chasemaster', along with Shreyas Iyer and former captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni stitched two fifty-plus stands to give India an outside chance in the match.

Kohli, hours before turning 29, brought up his 18th T20I half-century gave a semblance of hope during the chase, as has always been when he's at the crease.

Watch Kohli's fifty here, courtesy BCCI:

Virat slams fifty to keep Indian hopes alive https://t.co/pRH2i5zkwx #BCCI

— Cricket-atti (@cricketatti) November 5, 2017

In the process, he went pass Tillakaratne Dilshan (1889) to become the second highest run-scorer in T20I cricket. Former Kiwi captain Brendon McCullum is the top T20I run-scorer with 2140 runs.

Kohli has played 60 Tests, 202 ODIs and 54 T20Is, scoring 4658, 9030 and 1943 runs respectively with the help of 49 international hundreds. His 32 ODI tons is second only to Sachin Tendulkar's 49.