India vs West Indies: Virat Kohli Is By Far The Best Batsman In The World: Sunil Gavaskar

Former India skipper Sunil Gavaskar hailed Virat Kohli as the best batsman of all the formats after the latter scored yet another Test century in the ongoing first Test against West Indies.

Fresh from taking a deserved rest after the long tour of United Kingdom, Virat Kohli hit the ground running. Unbeaten on 72 overnight, Kohli brought up his 24th hundred on the second morning.

Impressed with the knock, Sunil Gavaskar lavished praised on the India skipper.

“Virat Kohli is the best batsman across formats in the modern era. He is by far the best batsman in the world,” Gavaskar told India Today. “The way he applies himself is hard to describe. It is beyond phenomenon. If only the West Indies batsmen took a leaf out of his book.

India vs West Indies: Virat Kohli Is By Far The Best Batsman In The World: Sunil Gavaskar

“On Thursday, he was not very smooth to start off with perhaps because he was coming back after a break. Then he was in cruise control. Despite the heat, he ran hard not just for himself but also for his batting partner at the other end,” he said.

Kohli was finally dismissed after scoring 139. The century helped him become the second quickest player to score 24 Test hundreds, surpassing the legendary Sachin Tendulkar. Kohli reached the milestone in his 123rd innings while Tendulkar had done it in 125 innings. The list is led by Sir Don Bradman who had scored his 24th Test ton in only his 66th innings.

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India vs West Indies: Virat Kohli Is By Far The Best Batsman In The World: Sunil Gavaskar
India vs West Indies (Credits: AP)

Kohli completed his 3000 Test runs in India too. He also became the joint-fastest to do so. Both he and Cheteshwar Pujara took 53 innings to reach the milestone. Kohli is also the fourth quickest to score 3,000 Test runs at home. The 29-year old also completed 1,000 runs in 2018. He thus became the first captain to score 1,000 runs in 3 consecutive calendar year and second captain to score 1,000 runs in 3 calendar years after Ricky Ponting (2005, 2006 & 2008).

Coming to the game, India have put themselves on the driver’s seat.

Prithvi Shaw, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja scored centuries while Cheteshwar Pujara and Rishabh Pant scored fifties as India posted a mammoth 649 for 9.

In reply, West Indies finished the day on 94-6, trailing by 555 runs.

 

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