Virat Kohli, a star batter from India, is set to pursue personal achievements as he readies himself for his first Test against Bangladesh at Chennai in hopes of surpassing the recent exploits of his contemporaries – Joe Root, Steve Smith and Kane Williamson in the longest form of cricket. A two-match series between India and Bangladesh commences on September 19 at Chennai’s MA Chidambaram Stadium. The second long-format game takes place on September 27 in Kanpur. Gautam Gambhir, head coach will want the maiden win for his side in the first test match.
Having returned back home after missing out on an earlier series against England due to the birth of his second child; Virat has done well during the brief but continuous ICC World Test Championship 2023-25 run, where he scored 369 runs in four matches and six innings at an average of 61.50, including one century and two fifties. His highest score is 121 runs.
Virat would aim to reach 9,000 runs in Test cricket, being only a few runs away from achieving this target because he requires merely 152 runs more to unlock it. This would make him join the elite list of four Indians who have reached this figure: Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sunil Gavaskar. In his career spanning over 113 matches played so far he has scored 8,848 runs while batting at number four with an average of 49.15 along with bat collectives such as 29 centuries and 30 fifties amongst others. His best score is however of 254 runs. The record holder for most runs scored by Indians in Tests is still Sachin Tendulkar who has amassed 15,921 runs across 200 games according to statistics.
With 26,942 runs accumulated during 533 matches and 591 innings over an average of 53.35 including 80 centuries and 140 fiftys, this veteran batsman stands fourth on the all-time list of international cricket run scorers hence he is nearing 27000 runs whenever he collects 58 more runs.
Yet it is also very important for Virat to get out of his poor performance this year through this series. In 14 matches played so far this year (including ODI), Virat has only managed to make a total of 296 runs while averaging shockingly below acceptable 19.73; in addition, having scored just one half-century from a total of 15 innings played so far in 2024). His highest score in 2024 remained 76 runs.
This series against Bangladesh will come before the forthcoming New Zealand tour India which will consist of three Tests set to begin on October 16th followed by the much awaited Border-Gavaskar Trophy series to be played in Australia starting November 22nd for Rohit Sharma’s team.
