After losing their first game of the T20 World Cup to South Africa, India made a strong comeback in the Super 12 stage as they defeated Bangladesh by a 5 runs in a game that was affected by rain in Adelaide. India scored 184 runs in the first innings and the man who was instrumental in helping the team pile up the runs was none other than the in-form Virat Kohli. He scored 64 runs from 44 balls in an innings that helped him go past Sri Lankan great Mahela Jayawardene as the highest run getter in T20 World Cup history.
With his 64-run innings, Virat Kohli now has 1065 runs in the T20 World Cup, as he surpassed Jayawardene’s tally of 1016 runs in the competition. In a video shared by Kohli’s IPL team Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Mahela Jayawardene, who iscurrently the consultant coach of the Sri Lankan team, sent a very special congratulatory message for the Indian batting icon for breaking his record.
“Records are meant to be broken. Someone was always going to break my record, and it’s you, Virat. Brilliant mate, congratulations. You’ve always been a warrior. Form is temporary but class is permanent. Well done, buddy,” said the Sri Lankan legend
Virat Kohli, by virtue of his innings, also surpassed the great Sachin Tendulkar to become the highest Indian run-getter in Australia across all formats. Sachin Tendulkar has 3300 runs in Australia in 84 innings, while Kohli has scored 3350 runs in 68 innings at an average of 56.77. In, fact Kohli also furthered his record as the highest run getter in T20I history. He also has the highest number of half-centuries in T20Is (36), while also having the most number of 50+ scores in T20 World Cup history (13).
Virat Kohli is also the current highest run getter in ongoing T20 with 220 runs from 4 matches at a mind boggling average of 220. He started off with a majestic 82 run knock vs Pakistan followed by another half-century vs England. He scored 12 runs vs South Africa but returned to score 64 against Bangladesh.
