Superstar Indian batsman Virat Kohli is now standing on the cusp of another major landmark in his T20 career, and six more runs in the upcoming 3rd T20I against Afghanistan will get him there.
On Wednesday, India will take on Afghanistan at Kohli’s home ground in the IPL, the M. Chinnaswamy stadium. There, in front of what is expected to be a full house of passionate, charged-up fans, Virat Kohli will have the opportunity to become the first Indian batsman to 12,000 T20 runs.
Making his T20 debut in 2007, in his career of 375 T20 matches so far, Kohli, who has turned up for India, RCB, Delhi, and Indians, has amassed 11994 runs at an average of 41. He has notched up 8 centuries and 91 half-centuries in the shortest format.
Virat Kohli is the fourth-leading T20 run-scorer in the world, behind Chris Gayle (14562 runs), Shoaib Malik (12993 runs), and Kieron Pollard (12430 runs).
Kohli has racked up such a huge amount of runs in the T20 format despite taking regular rests from T20I series which were against lower-ranked nations to give youngsters and fringe players chances.
You can check the list of top 10 T20 run-scorers, all of whom have over 10,000 runs under their belt, here.
Virat Kohli adopted aggressive approach in 2nd T20I
Virat Kohli has bought into captain Rohit Sharma and head coach Rahul Dravid’s new template of aggressive T20 cricket – new for the Indian team, but the world has been doing it for a while.
After missing the first T20I due to personal reasons, Kohli rocked up in Indore in the second T20I against Afghanistan and took on the bowlers straightaway. In the chase of 173, India lost skipper Rohit Sharma in the first over. Where previously Kohli would look to settle down and control the chase, this new version of the ‘KING’ went right after Mujeeb Ur Rahman, smashing him for fours on either side of the wicket.
He clobbered two fours to Naveen-ul-Haq and one more to Mujeeb, but got out to Naveen, having made an impactful 16-ball 29. Shivam Dube and Yashavi Jaiswal took over from there to see India over the line with 6 wickets in hand and 26 balls to spare.
Virat Kohli looked like a man on a mission in Indore 🎇#INDvAFG pic.twitter.com/v9iCwH8D47
— ICC (@ICC) January 15, 2024
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