Indian skipper Virat Kohli in action against Australia in the second ODI match.
Indian skipper Virat Kohli stands on the verge of surpassing former captain MS Dhoni's world record in the third and final ODI game of the series against Australia at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. The third game will be played on January 19.
Kohli stands just 17 runs away from breaking Dhoni's record of being the fastest to 5000 ODI runs as a captain. Dhoni had achieved the feat in his 127th innings. Kohli, meanwhile, is on 4983 runs from 81 innings. Australia's Ricky Ponting stands second, at present, in the list of fastest to the milestone - 131 innings.
Least inns to 5000 ODI runs as captain:
127 MS DHONI
131 R Ponting
135 G Smith
136 S Ganguly
151 M Azharuddin
157 A Ranatunga
201 S Fleming
Kohli will also be the fourth Indian captain to the milestone of 5000 ODI runs as a skipper after Dhoni (6641 runs), Mohammad Azharuddin (5239 runs) and Sourav Ganguly (5104 runs). And overall, will be the eighth player to join the club. Ponting stands atop with 8497 runs and others on the list are New Zealand's Stephen Fleming (6295), Arjuna Ranatunga (5608 runs), and South Africa's Graeme Smith (5416 runs).
Kohli scored 94 runs in the two matches against Australia in the series. In the opener, he batted at No.4 and scored only 16 runs, but on returning to his preferred No.3 spot, he carved a well-crafted 78 in Rajkot to guide India to a series-levelling win.
India will now play the series decider in Bengaluru where Kohli has scored only 63 runs in his five innings at the venue at an average of just 12.60.
