Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2018: Suresh Raina overtakes Virat Kohli with most T20 runs for India

What's the story?

India's discarded middle-order batsman Suresh Raina has gone past the national team's captain Virat Kohli as the record holder for the most runs in the T20 format. While playing for his domestic side Uttar Pradesh against Tamil Nadu in the ongoing Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy today, Raina overtook India's best batsman to make the feat his own.

In case you didn't know..

Before today's game at Kolkata, Raina had 7,053 T20 runs to his name. Those included matches for India, Uttar Pradesh and those in the IPL, while Kohli had scored 7,068 runs for India, Delhi and the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL.

The heart of the matter

Southpaw Raina was enduring a lean patch ever since the domestic season of 2017-18 began with the Ranji Trophy. He could manage merely 105 runs in 9 innings at an average of 11.67 with a best of only 33 as Uttar Pradesh exited the tournament in the group stages.

When the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy began, Raina's poor form continued with scores of 13, 1, 26, 2 and 13 in the first five games. However, he returned to good touch with a dominating innings of 126* off 59 balls – that included 13 fours and 7 sixes – against Bengal as Uttar Pradesh raked up 235 to eventually win by 75 runs. And against Tamil Nadu today, he got 61 off 41 balls to continue the momentum.

What's next?

Having progressed to the Super League stage of the tournament, Uttar Pradesh will next play Baroda and Delhi – both at Kolkata – on January 24 and 25, respectively. So far, excluding their encounter against Tamil Nadu, they have won four and lost two matches, having come second in the Central Zone group.

Author's Take

With an immense ability to strike the ball long and hard, Raina's achievement must not come as a surprise. He was the first Indian to hit a T20 international century and remains the most successful batsman in the history of the IPL, having accumulated more runs than any other batsman.