Most runs across formats by a visiting captain in South Africa

South Africa has perennially been a dreaded country for any visiting skipper over the years. If the ignominy of handling the pressures of selections and on-field strategies against a very strong Proteas team at home isn't enough, the batsman in him has to deal with their fearsome pace attack under hostile conditions, the recent series between South Africa and India epitomizing the aforementioned fact to the hilt.

Few visiting skippers have managed to step up to the challenge in the past hundred years with India's captain Virat Kohli being the latest entrant into the coveted list.

On that note, here is a compilation of most runs scored by a visiting skipper in South Africa over the years:

#4 Ricky Ponting (Australia tour of South Africa, 2005-06)

If there is a team that has dominated South Africa since their readmission into cricket in 1991-92 then it is the mighty Australians from down under. Australia hadn't lost a test series to the Proteas in the rainbow nation, and they preserved their distinguished record when they toured there in 2005-06, and their skipper Ricky Ponting was the chief architect of the magnanimous feat.

Australia beat South Africa 3-0 with the skipper being the highest run scorer, amassing 348 runs with a classy hundred at Kingsmead, Durban. He was at it again in the ODI series that followed. With series locked at 2-2, he scored an unbelievable 164 to power Australia to a record-breaking 434 in 50 overs. His efforts though were replicated to devastating effects by Herschelle Gibbs, who scored a brutal 175 to set up South Africa's record-breaking run chase, a feat unimaginable at halfway-mark.

Nevertheless, 'Punter' ended up as the highest run scorer for his team in the 5-match series, taking his tour tally to a mammoth 587 runs in 9 matches.

#3 Wally Hammond, England (The M.C.C team in South Africa, 1938-39)

Wally Hammond, a peerless strokemaker coupled with a pristine defense was one of the greatest batsmen of all time, and it was on full show when he led the M.C.C team to the Rainbow nation in 1938-39. The 1938-39 tour to South Africa proved to be a great fillip to the game in the country with huge crowds thronging to grounds in all Test matches as the cricket, especially from England team led by Hammond, was of the pretty high standard.

Hammond at his best was a treat and had an appetite for runs few can boast of and the South Africans learned that the hard way on the tour that helped his team win the 5-match series, the last match being the "Timeless Test" that had prolonged for ten days, with a scoreline of 1-0. The series win was a sweet redemption of their defeat at home by the H.F Wade-led Proteas in the summer of 1935.

Hammond's record of 609 runs stood for nearly 65 years before being broken in 2003-04.

#2 Brian Lara (West Indies tour of South Africa, 2003-04)

Brian Lara hadn't scored a hundred against South Africa away from home but the champion overcompensated with a sublime double hundred (202), an innings he later described was inspired by the heroics of Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman on the other side of the Southern Hemisphere (Adelaide Oval, Australia).

The highlight of the innings was when he clobbered Robin Peterson for a record 28 runs in an over, as the innings helped West Indies post a respectable total in reply to South Africa's first innings total. Lara continued to dazzle with the bat throughout the tour with 72 at Durban, a pristine 115 & 86 at Cape town.

'The Prince of Port of Spain' amassed a total of 627 runs across the formats, breaking the 65 years records of most runs by a visiting captain in South Africa in the process.

#1 Virat Kohli (India tour of South Africa, 2018)

It's arduous to recall if there was ever a purple patch as thick as the one Virat Kohli is going through for the past three years. Having scored almost 5.24% of his ODI runs in the current series that saw him amass 558 runs and become the fastest to score 17,000 International runs, it is surreal the benchmarks Kohli is setting for himself, his peers and the generation to follow.

The tour of the Rainbow nation has proved to be another feather in the cap in Virat Kohli's magnanimous career. The visitors didn't have the brightest of starts, having been beaten at Cape Town where Kohli had a rare off game both as a batsman and as skipper. However, the 29 year-old came back roaring and registered the only hundred (153) by a batsman on either side. Kohli finished the series as the highest run-getter from either side accumulating, 286 runs at a healthy average of 47.67.

The Indian skipper maintained his form to devastating effects in the one-day leg of the tour. After two centuries in the first five games, he was at it again in the sixth ODI at Centurion where the inevitability of his hundred was ridiculous. He scored an undeterred 129 off just 93 balls to bring up a hundred No. 35 and a 5-1 win for his team.

Kohli has scored a mind-boggling 558 runs in six innings, swelling his overall tally of the tour to 844 runs. The world no.1 ODI batsman also shattered the record of most runs by a batsman in a bilateral ODI series,previously held by Rohit Sharma (491 vs Australia, 2013). With three T20I still left on the sojourn, a 1000 runs by an Indian skipper in an away tour now looks an overwhelming possibility.