Australia vs India: Virat Kohli goes past Rahul Dravid with his half century at MCG

Indian captain Virat Kohli has been in tremendous form, scoring runs in almost every outing on the field across formats at the international stage. He is widely termed as the best batsman in the world right now for the inhumane consistency with which he has been piling on the runs. Irrespective of the conditions, pitch and the opponent runs have been a constant for Kohli. After immense success in England, he has carried on the form in Australia as well.

He added another feather to his cap of records by overtaking Rahul Dravid‘s long-standing record of most Test runs in a calendar year overseas. The Indian skipper bettered Dravid during his knock of 82 in the first innings of the third Test against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Most runs in overseas Tests in a year

Kohli has now scored 1138 runs this year away from home and thus he went past Dravid’s tally of 1137 runs that he had scored back in 2002. Among Indians, Mohinder Amarnath (1065  in 1983) and former Indian skipper Sunil Gavaskar (918 in 1971) feature in the list after Kohli and Dravid on the list.

Overall in 2018, Virat has accumulated 1322 runs, while maintaining a superlative average of 57.47 which includes five hundreds. He will most probably bat once again in the ongoing Test which will be his last inning for the calendar year.

It was a rare instance when the right-hander failed to convert a half century into a big knock. He was taking on the short ball today and after pulling it for a while decided to uppercut one from Mitchell Starc when on 82. Australia had prepared for this and thus had a fielder in place at third man to grab that one.

The ball went straight down the throat of Aaron Finch and it was a rather pale end to a hard-fought knock from the Indian skipper as he batted for 206 balls. His scoring rate was just 40 which is uncharacteristic for someone like Virat Kohli who loves to play his shots. Whether he gets to bat in the second innings will depend on Australia’s response but will have a chance to not just better this record but also ensure a win for his team.

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