5 of the biggest milestones breached by Virat Kohli in 2017

Virat Kohli is one of the greatest and fittest athletes in the world at present and the Indian skipper is currently enjoying the form of his life. Because of his exemplary batting technique and ability to adapt to different formats of the game, he is regarded as one of the most accomplished batsmen in the circuit. Nearly halfway through his career, Kohli is already being compared to Sachin Tendulkar himself.

Not only as a batsman, he has also been one of the most successful captains in internationals ever since he took over the duty from former MS Dhoni.

Year after year he has been breaking hundreds of records and it doesn't look like he is going to stop anytime soon. 2017 turned out to be another outstanding year for Indian captain, who smashed a plethora of records, achieving many milestones on the way.

Here are some of the greatest records he broke this year.

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#5 Fastest to 9000 ODI runs (194 innings)

Virat reached the 9000 run mark in the 3rd ODI against New Zealand played in Kanpur. Playing in his 202nd match, Virat Kohli became the fastest batsman to reach the milestone, reaching the mark in just 194 innings.

Previously, his RCB teammate AB de Villiers was the quickest to reach the milestone, who took 205 innings to reach the mark.

With this milestone, Kohli also became the sixth Indian and 19th batsman overall to cross the 9000 run mark. Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, MS Dhoni and Mohammad Azharuddin are the other Indian batsmen who have achieved the feat.

Virat ended the year on 9030 runs, just a few runs short of the halfway mark to Sachin's 18426 runs in ODIs, the most runs scored by any batsman.

#4 Second most numbers of centuries in ODIs (32)

In the first match of the New Zealand series, Virat Kohli scored his 31st ODI ton and surpassed Ricky Ponting, who had 30 centuries in ODIs. With this, he climbed one spot on the list and became the batsman to have second most centuries in ODIs.

Sachin Tendulkar, who has 49 ODI hundreds to his name, tops the list.

The milestone came in Virat's 200th match. He also became the batsman to have the most number of centuries after 200 matches. Kohli scored another ton in the third match of the same series, ending the year on 32 hundreds.

He is now 17 short of Sachin's 49 centuries milestone.

#3 Most ODI hundreds while chasing (19)

The Indian run-machine surpassed Sachin Tendulkar's record of most ODI centuries while chasing in the 5th match of the West Indies ODI series. Chasing a target of 206 set by the West Indies team, Virat played a brilliant knock of 111 runs, scoring his 18th ODI ton while chasing. He bettered Tendulkar's record who had 17 hundreds while chasing. On the back of his century, India comfortably won the match and the series by 3-1.

Interestingly, Kohli took just 102 innings to reach the 18th century while Tendulkar took 232 innings to score his 17 centuries while chasing. Sri Lankan batsman Tillakaratne Dilshan is third on the list with 11 tons in 116 innings while chasing.

Kohli scored another ton batting second against Sri Lanka at Colombo to take his tally to 19.

#2 Most double centuries in Tests by an Indian (6)

In the 3rd Test of the series against Sri Lanka, played at the iconic Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi, Kohli broke a number of records. On the morning of the 2nd day of the Test, Virat scored a double ton, taking his tally to six, which is the most number of 200s by an Indian in Tests along with Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag.

With this 200, he also became the first batsman to score six double hundreds as captain in Tests, surpassing Brian Lara who had five double tons as captain. Interestingly all other Indian captains collectively have only four double centuries. Earlier this year, he became the first batsman to score double hundreds in four successive series, scoring one each against West Indies, New Zealand, England and Bangladesh.

#1 Most international runs in 2017 (2818 runs)

At the end of the 3rd Test match against Sri Lanka played in Delhi, which was Virat's last international match of the year, he finished with 2818 runs across all the three international formats. This is the most number of runs scored by any batsman in 2017.

He scored 1460 runs in 26 ODIs, 1059 runs in 10 Tests and 299 runs in 10 T20 Internationals. Joe Root is second on the list with 2092 runs followed by Hashim Amla who has 2078.

This is also the third most international runs scored by any batsman in a calendar year. Sri Lankan batsman Kumar Sangakkara tops the list with 2868 runs in 2014. Following him is Ricky Ponting who scored 2833 in 2005.

Virat fell just 50 runs short of Sangakkara and might have ended up on the top of the list had he played in the ODI and T20I series against Sri Lanka.