Bengaluru (TIP)- Batting maestro Virat Kohli became the fourth Indian to cross 9000 runs in Test cricket, scaling another peak in a glorious career during the third day of the opening match against New Zealand here on Friday, October 18. Kohli joined an august company featuring Sachin Tendulkar (15921), Rahul Dravid (13265) and Sunil Gavaskar (10122). However, he is the slowest among them to reach this landmark, having taken 197 innings. The 35-year-old Kohli reached the mark after crossing his half-century in India’s second-innings. Batting at No. 3, Kohli fell for a nine-ball duck in the first innings as India were all out for 46. In the recent Test series against Bangladesh, Kohli became the quickest batter to complete 27,000 international runs in only 594 innings.
Meanwhile, a counter-attacking India kept alive the hopes of a miracle turnaround through free-flowing fifties from the troika of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Sarfaraz Khan, reaching 231/3 in their second innings on the third day of the first Test against New Zealand.
Kohli (70), who completed 9,000 Test runs during the course of his knock, got out to Glenn Phillips off the last ball of the day, edging to wicketkeeper Tom Blundell, leaving Sarfaraz (70) at the crease at close. The deficit at the end of an overcast day was a less intimidating 125. Kohli and Sarfaraz added 136 runs for the third wicket after skipper Rohit did the early running with a fluent 52.
This was after New Zealand posted a total of 402 all out to gain a massive lead of 356 runs thanks to Rachin Ravindra (134) and Tim Southee (63), who added precious 134 runs for a flowing eighth-wicket stand.
The largest deficit India has overturned to win a Test in their cricketing history is 274 during the iconic Kolkata Test against Australia in 2001.
Such an epic is still some distance away, but hopes will be flickering after the day’s effort with the bat.