India skipper Virat Kohli overtook former Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and West Indies' Brian Lara to become the fastest batsman to score 20,000 international runs. He made the record during the game against the West Indies at the Old Trafford on Thursday.
Kohli had 19, 963 runs to his name before the game and needed just 37 runs to break the record that legendary Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar held, along with Brian Lara.
As he crossed the 37th run of his innings in the 25th over of the innings against West Indies, he reached the 20,000-international run milestone. Kohli took 416 innings (131 in Tests, 223 in ODIs and 62 in T20Is) to make the record. Tendulkar and Lara, both had reached the milestone in 453 innings, followed by former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting who scored 20,000 runs in 468 innings.
He became the 12th batsman to this landmark and the third Indian after Tendulkar (34,357 runs) and Rahul Dravid (24,208 runs). The 30-year-old run-machine has been in great form in the ongoing tournament. After getting out cheaply against South Africa in the World Cup opener, Kohli scored 82 runs against Australia, 77 against Pakistan and 67 against Afghanistan.
Interestingly, during the innings against Pakistan at Old Trafford on June 16, Kohli also became the fastest batsman to score 11,000 ODI runs.
