Virat Kohli, the unmatched Indian finisher, has again proved his capabilities as a batsman and this time it was neither a century nor a half century. It was a mere 49 runs innings that helped him to make another record.
This innings will not be included in any of the tallies and no one will talk about this in coming future but for diehard Kohli fans or rather diehard Cricket fans, the innings will always have a soft spot in their hearts.
Virat Kohli is famous for keeping the best for the last and that is what everybody witnessed during the fourth innings of the Rajkot test against England. Kohli scored an unbeaten 49 runs and took the Indian team to an impossible draw.
This Delhi Boy, who thinks that there are only two results in a match, either a win or a defeat, was first introduced to test captaincy in December 2014 due to MS Dhoni’s injury. The debutant test captain launched himself into an impossible win and came very close to stealing a victory against Australia at Adelaide.
The world witnessed the greatest Fourth innings performance, however, he failed to cross the finish line. The world bowed down in respect of the new thinking that Kohli infused in test cricket. Kohli believes that whatever the conditions are, one should not stop trying till the end result.
This mindset has now made Virat Kohli the highest scoring Indian batsman in fourth innings.
| Innings | Runs | Highest | Average | 100 | 50 | |
| Virat Kohli | 15 | 718 | 141 | 65.27 | 2 | 4 |
| Sunil Gavaskar | 33 | 1398 | 221 | 58.25 | 4 | 8 |
| Rahul Dravid | 56 | 1552 | 103* | 40.84 | 1 | 9 |
| VVS Laxman | 38 | 1095 | 103* | 40.55 | 1 | 7 |
| Saurav Ganguly | 32 | 864 | 101* | 37.56 | 1 | 3 |
| Sachin Tendulkar | 60 | 1625 | 136 | 36.93 | 3 | 7 |
Kohli has an average of 65.27 runs in fourth innings which is second to none other than The God himself, Don Bradman (73.40).
Making a fifty or a hundred in fourth innings is the most difficult task for any batsman as the pitch is at its worst condition and the pressure is at all-time high. It seems that for Virat Kohli, pressure is just a word and the term has no impact on his performance.
Kohli has scored 2 hundreds and 4 fifties in his 15 test match career and at many occasions, he has gathered all his talent to save or win an ‘impossible to win’ test match.
The two other records that Virat Kohli achieved in this match are as follows:
1. He became the second and the first Indian since 1976 to remain unbeaten at 49*.
2. He is the second cricketer to score 2000 or more runs in 2016 in all formats, Joe Root being the first one with 2207 runs.
2000 runs for Virat Kohli in all international games in 2016!
Only Joe Root has more – 2207 runs!#IndvEng— Mohandas Menon (@mohanstatsman) November 13, 2016
Virat Kohli is playing with records since his debut and has earned the name ‘One Man Army’ due to his consistent performance in chasing. Now the cricketer has grabbed a permanent spot in the hearts of old-school cricket fans and we hope to see him take his game to the next level.
14 November 2016
Rohan Jaitly