Kohli becomes India's highest scoring Test captain
He went past Sunil Gavaskar and MS Dhoni to take the record
ESPNcricinfo Ltd
On a pitch that was extremely difficult to bat on for most of the day - and misbehaved enough to trigger an official discussion on whether it was safe enough to continue playing on - Virat Kohli made 41 runs from 79 deliveries to help India along to a total that gave them the chance to score an elusive away win and only their third Test win in South Africa. During the course of the innings he went past MS Dhoni and Sunil Gavaskar to become India's highest scoring Test captain. He has made 3456 runs at 65.20 in Tests while leading India.
Sat out of the first two Tests of the series, Rahane came in to bat with India 93 runs ahead. He looked the most comfortable batsman on the third day, scoring rapidly off lengths that were troubling batsmen at the other end. Rahane faced 33 deliveries pitched on full and good lengths, and was in control of his shots a whopping 90.00% of the time - easily the best control shown by any of the India batsmen.
Batsman | BF | Runs | Boundaries | Control % | SR |
Ajinkya Rahane | 40 | 31 | 5 | 90.00 | 77.50 |
Lokesh Rahul | 33 | 16 | 2 | 81.81 | 48.48 |
Hardik Pandya | 5 | 2 | 0 | 80.00 | 40.00 |
Murali Vijay | 93 | 13 | 0 | 79.56 | 13.97 |
Bhuvneshwar Kumar | 29 | 20 | 2 | 75.86 | 68.96 |
Virat Kohli | 47 | 27 | 4 | 74.46 | 57.44 |
Cheteshwar Pujara | 7 | 1 | 0 | 71.42 | 14.28 |
Parthiv Patel | 12 | 12 | 2 | 58.33 | 100.00 |
Batsman | BF | Runs | Boundaries | Control % | SR |
Ajinkya Rahane | 13 | 12 | 2 | 92.30 | 92.30 |
Virat Kohli | 21 | 6 | 1 | 66.66 | 28.57 |
Bhuvneshwar Kumar added 33 runs to his crucial contribution of 30 runs in the first innings making him only the second India batsman in this match to get 30 or more runs in both innings. In a series in which batsmen have struggled to put together meaningful partnerships, his 55-run stand with Rahane in India's second innings was the second time he added 50 or more runs with a partner in these Tests. Out of the six fifty-plus stands India have had in the series, only Kohli has been involved in more such stands. In fact, Bhuvneshwar has faced more balls per dismissal in this series than any other India batsman. In four innings that he has batted, Bhuvneshwar has faced 252 balls, getting dismissed three times.
Batsman | Inns | Runs | Ave | Balls per dis |
Bhuvneshwar Kumar | 4 | 101 | 33.65 | 84.0 |
Virat Kohli | 6 | 286 | 47.66 | 79.2 |
M Vijay | 6 | 102 | 17.00 | 59.8 |
Cheteshwar Pujara | 6 | 100 | 16.66 | 57.0 |
Ajinkya Rahane | 2 | 57 | 28.50 | 47.5 |
Rohit Sharma | 4 | 78 | 19.50 | 47.5 |
R Ashwin | 4 | 90 | 22.50 | 36.0 |
Parthiv Patel | 4 | 56 | 14.00 | 29.5 |
Hardik Pandya | 6 | 119 | 19.82 | 28.8 |
KL Rahul | 4 | 30 | 7.50 | 25.3 |
Shikhar Dhawan | 2 | 32 | 16.00 | 16.5 |
Shiva Jayaraman is a senior stats analyst at ESPNcricinfo @shiva_cricinfo