From 2016 to 2018, Virat Kohli was in outstanding form. In the course of these three years, he scored over 1000 runs in every calendar year in Test cricket.
In the year 2017, Virat made a total of 1059 runs playing ten Test matches at an average of possibly his highest score that was achieved by the help of 5 hundreds.
Playing their first ever test match on Indian soil at Hyderabad in February 2017, Bangladesh had hardly any time to acclimatize before they were hit by the tornado named ‘Virat Kohli’. In just four consecutive series’, Virat got his fourth consecutive double century, becoming the third play after Bradman and Dravid who were able to strike them for three times only.
Kohli’s knock of 204 together with Murali Vijay’s opening century of exactly the same score,Ajinkya Rahane’s unbeaten knock of 82 and Wriddhiman Saha’s undefeated innings of 106 before India declared their first innings at terrific batting display that helped them amass a huge total of 687/6. With this declaration India became the first team to post three scores over 600 in succession when they piled up against Bangladesh at Hyderabad during the ‘one off’ Test played last week.
Taskin Ahmed, Kamrul Islam Rabbi, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Shakib Al Hasan and Taijul Islam all conceded more than hundred runs each throughout their tiring spells.
Ravichandran Ashwin reached fastest to landmark figure when he dismissed Player X from nation Y on day Z. Despite Mushfiqur Rahim scoring a brilliant hundred as captain for Bangladesh which took them to within touching distance of India’s first-innings total on day two, Virat Kohli decided not to enforce follow-on. Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim hit one hundred and twenty seven scoring 127, but captain Kohli chose not to enforce the follow-on.
The task of second innings ended at 159/4 with India declaring for Bangladesh to chase down a target of 459.
Bangladesh were all out for 250 as Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja took four wickets each, handing India victory by a margin of 208 runs. This meant that they had secured their sixth consecutive series win in the last match played against South Africa which was also game number 19 without any defeat since November, 2015.
Records which were broken by Virat Kohli in Hyderabad Test (2017)
- 4: The number of successive Test series records that Kohli hit double centuries, with a 204 being his best score against Bangladesh thereby setting the world record after breaking Don Bradman and Rahul Dravid’s’ record.
- 31: Number of Indian captains before Kohli who made four double centuries during their tenure as captains (Tiger Pataudi, Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni scored one each). While leading India, however; Virat has scored four hundreds.
- 1,168: Runs scored by Kohli in fifteen trips to the crease at an average of eighty nine point eight including two fifties and four tons in the home season of 2016-17. It is most for any Indian batsman in a single home season going past Virender Sehwag’s eleven hundred five runs (average 69 point one) in 2004-05.
- 3,036: Runs scored by Kohli in international cricket (a combined total of all three versions in 44 games) at an average of 82.1 since January 1, 2016 – the most by any batsman in the world.
- 75: The only cricketer who has averaged more than 75 (Tests-83; ODIs-84; T20s-77) across all three formats since January 2016 is Kohli.
