New Delhi: After the low of first Test, Virat Kohli’s batting came into its own in the first innings of the second Test against South Africa at Centurion as he scored his 21st Test Century on the third day, becoming only the second India captain after Sachin Tendulkar to achieve the landmark in the rainbow nation.
Tendulkar scored 169 in the Cape Town Test on India’s tour of 1996-97. Kohli has matched it two decades later. In fact, Tendulkar and Kohli are the only two captains from the subcontinent to score a Test century in South Africa.
Kohli, who scored 5 and 28 in the two innings of the first Test at Newlands, resumed his innings on Monday batting on 85 and didn’t take long to reach his hundred as India tried to get closer to the home team’s first-innings score of 335.
On Day two, Kohli had become only the fourth India captain to score a half-century or more in South Africa, after Tendulkar (169 in Cape Town 1996), Dhoni (90 in Centurion 2010) and Mohammad Azharuddin (60 in Port Elizabeth 1992).
With this hundred at Centurion, Kohli’s tally of Test centuries as captain reaches seven, which is also the highest among players to lead India, followed by Azharuddin (5), Tendulkar (4), Rahul Dravid (4) and Sourav Ganguly (3).
India lost the first Test of the ongoing three-match series by 72 runs.
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