Virat Kohli On Cusp Of Surpassing Rahul Dravid And Sourav Ganguly In Elite List Of Indian Batters vs South Africa In ODIs

Virat Kohli is not the captain of the Indian cricket team in any format for the first time since January 2015 and the Indian cricket fans would hope that this could spur the batter to go out there and regain his form of old with the bat.

Kohli, the batter, has hit a rough patch across formats, which has seen him not score a century since November 2019. He has not been woefully out of form, but we haven’t seen a dominating performance from the former India captain in a while now.

While Kohli has been the best all format batter of this generation, if there is one format that he has bossed over since the start of his career, it is the one-day internationals. And the upcoming series against South Africa presents a chance for Kohli to regain his form of old.

When he steps out to bat at Paarl in the first ODI, Kohli will be just a few runs away from surpassing two Indian legends in an elite list.

Current head coach Rahul Dravid (1309 runs) and BCCI president Sourav Ganguly (1313 runs) are placed third and second respectively in the list of Indian batters with most runs against South Africa in ODIs.

Kohli is currently fourth in the list with 1287 runs while the list is headed by the great Sachin Tendulkar, who scored 2001 runs against the Proteas in 57 matches.

Sachin in fact leads the overall list too and is followed by Ricky Ponting, who has 1879 runs against South Africa.

What sets Kohli apart from the rest is the fact that he averages a whopping 64.35 against South Africa in ODIs and has scored 4 centuries and 6 half-centuries against them.

The last time India played a bilateral ODI series in South Africa, they thrashed the hosts and Kohli would hope he can contribute richly with the bat to help India win the series and recover some lost pride after going down in the Tests.