Virat Kohli equals Tendulkar, Sehwag in scoring record sixth double century
Captain Virat Kohli joined Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag in sharing the record of most number (six) of double centuries for India in Test cricket on the second day of the third and final Test against Sri Lanka in New Delhi on Sunday.
Kohli, playing in his 63rd Test match, took 238 deliveries to complete his second consecutive double hundred as he continued to plunder the Sri Lankans in the morning session of the match held at the Ferozshah Kotla stadium.
This also makes Kohli the only captain to score six double tons in the longest format of the game. West Indies legend Brian Lara had the record of five, which Virat had equalled in the previous match.
Virat Kohli first Test captain to register six scores of 200+
— Mohandas Menon (@mohanstatsman) December 3, 2017
Prev best: five by Brian Lara#IndvSL
This comes after the batsman became the fourth fastest Indian batsman to reach the landmark of 5,000 runs in the five-day format on the opening day of the third and final cricket Test against Sri Lanka in Delhi on Saturday.
The Indian captain reached the milestone in 105 innings -- the same number as his England counterpart Joe Root. To go with that, Kohli also managed to cross the barrier of 16,000 international runs across all formats.
Kohli reached the mark in typical style, smashing Sri Lanka pacer Suranga Lakmal for a boundary shortly after lunch.
Playing in his 63rd Test in front of his home fans, the 29-year-old from Delhi became the 11th Indian batsman to score 5,000 Test runs, when he reached 25 during India's first innings.
The legendary Sunil Gavaskar is the quickest among Indian batsmen, achieving the distinction in 95 innings.
Former star opener Virender Sehwag is second at 98 innings while Sachin Tendulkar is placed third with 103 innings.
Kohli is also the second quickest among Indian batsmen in terms of time. He needed 2,358 days to complete the feat after Rahul Dravid's 2,252 days. Sehwag is third at 2,464 days.
The India skipper is also the second youngest to reach the 5,000-run mark among Indian batsmen at 29 years and 27 days. Tendulkar tops the list among Indians at 25 years and 301 days.
Entering the match with 4,975 Test runs to his name, Kohli struck three boundaries before lunch to be eight runs short of the mark at the interval.
He played a brilliant back-foot drive past point off the bowling of Lakmal, to get within a run and then drove him for another boundary past wide mid-off to go past the mark.
IANS inputs