IND vs NZ: Virat Kohli surpasses MS Dhoni as India’s second-most capped cricketer. (BCCI)
Senior batter Virat Kohli on Thursday surpassed MS Dhoni as India’s second-most capped international cricketer during the first Test against New Zealand at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
Kohli was confirmed for his 536th international match when listed in the XI and went past Dhoni’s 535 caps for India between 2004 and 2019. Sachin Tendulkar tops the charts among Indians, with 664 appearances across formats in a career spanning from 1989 to 2013. Among active cricketers, Kohli is followed by India captain Rohit Sharma (486) and Ravindra Jadeja (346) in the list.
Kohli has thus far amassed 27,041 runs and 80 hundreds in his career, only bettered by Tendulkar among Indians. He has represented India in 295 ODIs and featured in 125 T20Is before retiring earlier this year after the T20 World Cup triumph in the West Indies.
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The 35-year-old is tied for eighth in terms of Test appearances for India, earning his 116th cap this week. Kohli is 53 runs short of becoming only the fourth Indian to complete 9000 runs in Tests, behind Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sunil Gavaskar.
In the recent Test series against Bangladesh, Kohli became the quickest batter to complete 27,000 international runs in only 594 innings.
Kohli made his international debut in an ODI in Sri Lanka in 2008. He opened the batting with current head coach Gautam Gambhir and scored 17 runs in his maiden appearance. Kohli later made his T20I debut in 2010 in Zimbabwe before playing his first Test against the West Indies in Kingston.
Most matches for India
| Player | Span | Mat | Runs | Wickets |
| Sachin Tendulkar | 1989-2013 | 664 | 34357 | 201 |
| Virat Kohli | 2008-2024 | 536* | 27041 | 9 |
| MS Dhoni | 2004-2019 | 535 | 17092 | 1 |
| Rahul Dravid | 1996-2012 | 504 | 24064 | 5 |
| Rohit Sharma | 2007-2024 | 486 | 19276 | 12 |
| M Azharuddin | 1984-2000 | 433 | 15593 | 12 |
| Sourav Ganguly | 1992-2008 | 421 | 18433 | 132 |
| Anil Kumble | 1990-2008 | 401 | 3409 | 953 |
| Yuvraj Singh | 2000-2017 | 399 | 11686 | 147 |
| Harbhajan Singh | 1998-2016 | 365 | 3545 | 707 |
