Virat Kohli surpasses Don Bradman after scoring his 19th Test ton

The Indian skipper Virat Kohli has surpassed Don Bradman when it comes to converting 50s into hundreds as captain in Test cricket. He notched up his 19th Test century on Sunday against Sri Lanka in Nagpur where the second Test match of the three-match series is currently in progress. This was also his 12th century since taking over the reins of the team in the longest format to go with four half-centuries. However, the conversion rate of Kohli is at the moment 75 percent which is even better than the great Bradman.

Sir Donald Bradman played his cricket in the first half of the 20th century and piled on the runs like no one against the opposition. Fearless batting was the hallmark of his every knock and everyone used to be in awe of his batsmanship. He too raised the bar after taking over as the skipper of the Australian team and smashed 21 scores of more than 50 in 38 innings. The more interesting statistics here is that he converted 14 of them into centuries which makes him the greatest ever cricketer in the World.

Virat Kohli, on the other hand, has eased past Bradman in this case and has converted 12 of his 16 scores of more than 50 in 49 innings since becoming the captain. Michael Clarke, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene and Steve Waugh also make it to the list as far as the conversion rate is concerned as captain after Kohli and Bradman.

Highest conversion rate as captain in Test cricket

Bradman leads overall conversion list

Don Bradman of Australia is known for his amazing average of 99.94 in his illustrious Test career of 52 matches. But very few know the fact that he converted 29 of his 42 scores in excess of fifty into centuries. His conversion rate of 69.07 is still the highest in the history of the longest format of the game. Kohli is third in the list with 19 centuries so far in 104 innings to go with the conversion rate of 57.58. He needs to continue scoring runs in the same vein throughout his career to go past Bradman.

Overall conversion rate in Test cricket