Virat Kohli becomes first captain to score six double tons in Test cricket

NEW DELHI: Virat Kohli scaled yet another milestone, becoming the first skipper to hit six double centuries in Test cricket.

The 29-year-old Indian thus surpassed West Indies great Brian Lara, who held the record previously with five double tons in Tests.

India's current 'Milestone Man', who had emulated Rahul Dravid with his previous double century in Nagpur, today equalled Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag for the maximum number of double hundreds for India in Tests.

Tendulkar had scored six double centuries, while Sehwag hit a record four double and two triple tons for India.

Playing in his 63rd Test, Kohli scored his record sixth Test double hundred on the second day of the ongoing third and final Test against Sri Lanka at the Feroz Shah Kotla here.

This is also the second double century on the trot for the Indian captain.

Kohli pulled pacer Suranga Lakmal and ran two to bring up his sixth double century in 238 balls, which included 20 boundaries.

He is also only the second Indian after Vinod Kambli to score back-to-back double hundreds. In 1993, the former left-handed batsman had scored 224 against England in Mumbai and 227 against Zimbabwe in Delhi.

Overall, Kohli is in the sixth place in the list of most double hundreds in a career, which is topped by Australian legend Don Bradman (12), followed by Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara (11), Lara (9), England's Wally Hammond (7) and Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene (7).

Yesterday, Kohli had become the first captain to hit three successive hundreds in a three-Test series.

The India captain also completed his individual 5000 runs in the longest version of the game, becoming the 11th Indian batsman to achieve the milestone.

Kohli took 105 innings to cross the 5000-mark, becoming the fourth fastest to achieve the feat in terms of innings behind Sunil Gavaskar (95), Virender Sehwag (99) and Sachin Tendulkar (103).