IND vs SA: Virat Kohli Surpasses Rahul Dravid, Sits Behind Virender Sehwag & Sachin Tendulkar In Elite List

Former Indian skipper Virat Kohli scored 38 off 64 balls on day 1 of the first Test between India and South Africa in Centurion. Kohli took a rest from the white-ball series against South Africa and he made a comeback for the two-match Test series. 

Kohli had his work cut out very early on day 1. South African pacers pressed the Indian batters and brought India down to 24/3. Kohli walked out to bat and looked to play with intent right from the start. 

He played the ball on merit and also looked to score. The former Indian skipper needed just 16 runs to surpass Rahul Dravid’s tally of 1252 runs against South Africa. Kohli surpassed the former Indian skipper and now has 1274 runs under his belt. 

He has a chance to surpass Virender Sehwag’s tally of 1306 runs against South Africa when he bats in the second innings. Sachin Tendulkar sits at the top of India’s run-getters against South Africa with 1741 runs in 25 Test matches. 

Virat Kohli Gets To 1274 Test Runs Against South Africa, Sits Only Behind Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag

South Africa won the toss and asked India to bat first in Centurion. Prasidh Krishna is making his Test debut for India while Nande Burger for South Africa. Kagiso Rabada took his maiden fifer against India to pose problems for the batting lineup in the very first. 

India lost wickets at regular intervals as Rabada bowled with pace and fire. He edged Kohli outside the off stump to dismiss the former Indian skipper. Until that point, Kohli was looking good with every shot he played. 

Talking about Virat Kohli’s dismissal in the first innings, AB de Villiers the former South African skipper explained how the Protean bowlers can dismiss the former Indian skipper. ABD spoke about bowling to Kohli on the fourth stump line to be successful. Kagiso Rabada exactly did the same thing and was successful.

“Only way to get a Virat Kohli kind of batter out is a very orthodox way of bowling on the fourth stump channel and play a waiting game. And wait for that one delivery which nips a bit far away,” de Villiers told PTI.

“You can’t attack a good player, he was straight,” De Villiers told PTI during an exclusive interview ahead of the Boxing Day Test starting December 26.

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ABD also compared Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli just ahead of the start of the Test series against South Africa. He said that was always difficult to get the two batters out. 

“Like in case of Tendulkar, it was silly to always wait for leg before (to an incoming delivery). Because he would hit you through mid-wicket. So bowl those deliveries outside off-stump (to Virat) and wait for one to either nip away or nip in,” de Villiers concluded. 

India vs South Africa Test Squads 

India Test squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Prasidh Krishna, KS Bharat (wk), Abhimanyu Easwaran.

South Africa Test squad: Temba Bavuma (c), David Bedingham, Nandre Burger, Gerald Coetzee, Tony de Zorzi, Dean Elgar, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, Wiaan Mulder, Lungi Ngidi, Keegan Petersen, Kagiso Rabada, Tristan Stubbs, Kyle Verreynne (wk).

Also Read: IND vs SA: Watch – “Ball Dekhte Rehna…” – Virat Kohli’s Interesting Conversation With Shreyas Iyer Goes Viral