Virat Kohli surpasses Azharuddin to become overall fifth leading run scorer for India in ODIs

The Modern-day great of the game, Virat Kohli, surpassed Mohammad Azharuddin to become the fifth leading scorer for India in One-day Internationals. Kohli galloped past Azhar by taking his ODI tally of runs to 9,432 with his 75-run knock at Wanderers on Saturday.

In 308 innings, Azhar amassed 9378 runs for India in the 50-over format of the game. The ton machine took only 198 innings to surpass the former Indian captain. Which means, Kohli is only four steps away to become the highest run-scorer for India in coloured clothing.

India’s talismanic wicketkeeper-batsman, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, still holds the fourth place on the list of highest run scorers.

Dhoni has registered 9,912 runs to his name in the 270 innings he has batted so far. He is only 88 runs away to become only the fourth Indian player to join the 10,000 run-club.

The leader of the pack still is the Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar with 18,426 runs to his name in 452 outings. Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid occupy the second and the third place respectively in the prestigious list.

Indian all format captain achieved the feat during his knock of 75 off 83 balls in the Pink ODI at Johannesburg.

Together with Shikhar Dhawan again, Kohli stitched a game-changing partnership of 158 runs at rapid pace. This took India to a point of solidarity with the score at 200/2 before the halt in play.

Interestingly, the halt was caused due to lighting but not rain, citing security concerns for players. Dhawan struck his 13th ODI ton and became only the 9th player to score a ton on his 100th game.

Earlier, Virat Kohli surpassed Rahul Dravid for his tally of most runs on an away tour.

The Indian run-machine already has 350-plus runs to his name in the bilateral series. He is the only player to achieve the feat in the South African soil.

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