England vs India: Sachin Tendulkar hails Virat Kohli’s 149 in Birmingham

Virat Kohli’s knock came at a crucial time since no other Indian batsmen succeeded to cross 30 in reply to England’s first innings score of 287. He batted with the tail, especially with No. 10 Ishant Sharma (5 off 17) and Umesh Yadav (1 not out off 16) to reach his first ton on English soil and eventually scored 149 off 225 balls to take India’s score as close to that of the hosts as possible. India were eventually bowled out for 274, giving England a slender lead of 13 runs though that could be crucial under these conditions.

Kohli’s innings featured 22 boundaries and one six and although his knock after that dreaded tour of 2014 (he averaged 13.5) brought smile to the face of his million fans, the form of India’s other batsmen continued to be a worry. The next highest scorer for India after Kohli was Shikhar Dhawan who scored 26.

It was Kohli’s 57th international hundred and 22nd in Tests. This hundred brought him at par with former captain Mohammed Azharuddin although he did it 32 matches faster than the latter. Only Tendulkar (51), Rahul Dravid (36), Sunil Gavaskar (34) and Virender Sehwag (23) have more Test hundreds than Kohli for India. He was also the fastest to reach 7,000 international runs as the captain, bettering former West Indian captain Brian Lara by 31 matches and 40 innings.

Sachin has a golden tweet for Virat

Former Indian captain Sachin Tendulkar praised skipper Virat Kohli for his key hundred in the first innings of the first Test against England at Edgbaston on Thursday. The former ace batsman took to Twitter to say: “A very important knock by @ImVkohli. Lovely way to set up the Test series. Congrats on your Test hundred. #ENGvIND”

Tendulkar had scored his first Test/international hundred at Old Trafford in England on August 9, 1990, when he batted for 119 not out to deny the hosts a victory. He was only 17 then.