Superman batsman Virat Kohli is close to a rare feat in his career. The Indian skipper, currently sitting on 870 runs in the series against South Africa across all formats, is 130 runs short of reaching another milestone — 1,000 runs on a single tour by any batsman, after West Indies great Sir Viv Richards.
In 1976, Richards hammered 1,045 runs in England and he remains the only batsman in the history of the game to cross the 1000-run mark on a single tour. Kohli could be the second.
Not to forget, Richards had missed the second Test of the five-match series due to an injury. He scored 829 runs in four Tests, which included two double hundreds, 232 and 291.
Read: Kohli rises above 900 points, sets new record
Richards added 216 runs more in the three-match ODI series.
The only other batsman who came close to the 1000-run mark in a series was Sir Donald Bradman (974 runs in five Tests, Ashes 1930). Former Australia skipper Mark Taylor almost touched Bradman’s record, when he scored 839 runs in the six-match Ashes series in 1989.
Kohli scored 286 runs in the Tests against South Africa — including a hundred at Centurion — and took his game to a new level in the ODI series with 558 runs; including three hundreds. He was dismissed for 26 in the first T20 at Johannesburg.
But it is to be noted that Richards’ record came in only seven games, Kohli had 12 games to get to the number.
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