Usman Khawaja has returned to form notching up his 16th century in the format in the first Test against Sri Lanka in Galle. After winning the toss, Australia have dominated Sri Lanka on the opening day with the left-handed batter playing a crucial role in it. In the process, he also completed 3000 runs in the World Test Championship (WTC) becoming just the sixth batter to do so. Notably, Khawaja is the fourth Australian to cross the 3000-run mark in WTC as Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith and Travis Head have already crossed the said mark before.
Khawaja is also closing in on crossing his teammate Travis Head in the list of players with the most runs in WTC history. However, he has surpassed former Pakistan captain Babar Azam who has scored 2998 runs in 36 Test matches in WTC. Interestingly, among six players who have completed 3000 runs in WTC, four are from Australia and two are from England.
Most runs in WTC history
Player | Runs |
Joe Root | 5543 |
Marnus Labuschagne | 4156 |
Steve Smith | 3886 |
Ben Stokes | 3312 |
Travis Head | 3015 |
Usman Khawaja | 3005* |
Among other players, India's Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are also on the verge of completing 3000 runs in WTC. While the Indian captain has scored 2716 runs in 40 Tests so far, Kohli has accumulated 2617 runs in 46 matches. India are not playing a Test match till June when they are scheduled to face England for a five-match series and both the legendary players would be expected to score a fair amount of runs in the series if they end up featuring in it.
For Pakistan, Babar Azam is set to become the first player to score 3000 runs in WTC but they aren't playing a Test for the next eight months. The man got out just two runs shy of his milestone against the West Indies recently in the second innings after looking good during his 31-run knock.