England vs India 2018: Virat Kohli inches closer to overtaking Steven Smith's run tally in Test cricket

Team India’s skipper Virat Kohli is widely regarded as one of the modern day greats of the game across formats. He is one of the four batsmen in World Cricket who define modern day class and consistency and are extremely effective irrespective of the condition and the opposition. The other three batsmen include- Australia’s Steve Smith, England’s Joe Root and New Zealand’s Kane Williamson. Interestingly, these four also make it to the Top 5 of the ICC test Rankings at present.

Although Virat had surpassed Steve Smith to get back to his No. 1 ranking after he scored 200 runs in the Trent Bridge Test against England, in terms of the Total runs scored in Test Career, he is still behind Joe Root and Steve Smith. However, he has more runs under his belt than Kane Williamson. While Virat trails Root by 108 runs, he needs 206 runs in the ongoing series to go past Steve Smith, who is currently not playing International Cricket.

As soon as Kohli scores 6 more runs in the ongoing series against England, he will also become India’s 10th batsmen to enter the 6000 run club in Test Cricket. Only Sachin Tendulkar (15921), Rahul Dravid (13265), Sunil Gavaskar (10122), VVS Laxman (8781), Virender Sehwag (8503), Sourav Ganguly (7212), Dilip Vengsarkar (6868), Mohammad Azharuddin (6215) and Gundappa Vishwanath (6080) have scored more runs than Virat, turning up for India in Test Cricket.

Kohli also has a chance to break the record for the highest number of runs scored by an Indian on England soil in a single series. With 440 runs presently, he already has broken the record for the most runs by an Indian Captain in England in a single series. However, the record for the highest runs by an Indian batsman in England is still held by Rahul Dravid who had scored 602 runs against England in 2002 in 4 Test Matches.

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