India captain Virat Kohli has made it a habit of breaking Sachin Tendulkar’s batting records. Kohli snatches a Tendulkar record – whether big or small - and adds to his tally in almost every series.

The ICC World Cup 2019 has been no different. In India’s last World Cup match against Pakistan, Kohli got past Tendulkar to become the fastest to 11000 ODI runs. And in India’s next match against Afghanistan, Kohli not only has a chance to go past Tendulkar but he also has an opportunity to bag another world record.

Kohli is only 104 runs away from reaching 20,000 international runs. If he gets it against Afghanistan, he will be the 12th batsman to this landmark and the 3rd Indian after Sachin Tendulkar (34,357 runs) and Rahul Dravid (24,208 runs).

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Kohli, who has 11020 runs in ODIs, 6613 in Tests and 2263 in T20Is, will become the fastest to the landmark.

The record for the fastest to 20,000 international runs, however, doesn’t belong to Tendulkar alone. He shares it with West Indian legend Brian Lara. Both Tendulkar and Lara had taken 453 innings to complete 20,000 international runs.

Kohli, on other hand, has played only 415 innings so far – 131 in Tests, 222 in ODIs and 62 in T20Is. He will once again beat both Tendulkar and Lara by a comprehensive margin.

The third on the list is former Australia World Cup winning captain Ricky Ponting, who had taken 468 innings to get to the feat.

Kohli has not been at his fluent best in this World Cup but he has shown glimpses of his class with two well-compiled half-centuries against Australia (82) and Pakistan (77) and he would look to get to that three-figure mark which has eluded him in this World Cup so far, against Afghanistan on Saturday.

In the absence of Shikhar Dhawan, who has been ruled out of the tournament with a fractured thumb, there will also be added responsibility on Kohli’s shoulder to provide a solid platform for the likes of MS Dhoni and Hardik Pandya.

First Published: Jun 21, 2019 09:09 IST