Virat Kohli became the quickest to reach 11,000 international runs as captain as India took on Sri Lanka in the third and final T20 international tie here on Friday.

Kohli needed just one run to reach the milestone and the batting ace took a single off Lakshan Sandakan to get there. He became the sixth international skipper to reach the mark and the second Indian after Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

India lead the three-match T20 series against Sri Lanka 1-0 after their facile seven-wicket win in Indore on Tuesday. Kohli hit the winning runs by whacking a six as he remained unbeaten on 30 from 17 deliveries.

The first T20I in Guwahati was called off without a ball being bowled due to rain and wet patches on the pitch.

Indian skipper Virat Kohli has been included in the list of five cricketers of the decade announced by Wisden. Along with Kohli, the other four cricketers are – Steve Smith, Dale Steyn, AB de Villiers and Ellyse Perry.

“His genius has been to rise, time and again, to the challenge. Between the end of the England tour in 2014 and the second Test against Bangladesh at Kolkata in November, Kohli averaged 63, with 21 hundreds and 13 fifties,” said Wisden about Kohli.

“It left him with a unique set of statistics – the only batsman to average at least 50 in all three international formats. Even Steve Smith was moved to remark recently that there is no one quite like him.”

“In many ways, there isn’t. Since the retirement of Sachin Tendulkar and the gradual waning of MS Dhoni, no cricketer in the world has operated under such daily pressure as Kohli,” it added.

On Tuesday, ICC posted some astonishing stats about Kohli which showed his dominance in world cricket over this decade. “Virat Kohli this decade: 5,775 more international runs than anyone else, 22 more international hundreds than anyone else,” posted the ICC on its official Twitter handle.

In 2019, Kohli scored 2,370 across formats at an average of 64.05. It was the fourth consecutive time that the 31-year-old aggregated 2000-plus runs in a calendar year.

The Indian skipper has already been named as the captain of Wisden’s Test team of the decade. The Indian run-machine also finds a spot in the Wisden ODI team of the decade alongside MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma and others.

The Indian cricket team has arrived in the US for the upcoming three-match T20I series against the West Indies which starts from Saturday.

Players have been taking to their social media handles posting pictures of themselves while practising and enjoying in Florida.

On Friday, skipper Virat Kohli also posted a picture with his teammates on Instagram with a caption “SQUAD”.

In the picture, Ravindra Jadeja, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed, Shreyas Iyer, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and K.L. Rahul can be seen posing alongside Kohli.

However, vice captain Rohit Sharma is missing from the frame, which has once again given ammunition to people who have been speculating about a rift between Kohli and his deputy.

Various fans commented on the picture asking about the absence of India vice captain.

Earlier before the departure for the West Indies tour, Rohit had also posted a photo on Instagram which said: “I don’t just walk out for my Team. I walk out for my country.”

Ever since India’s exit from the World Cup in the semifinals, there have been rumours about a rift between Kohli and Rohit. However, both Kohli and head coach Ravi Shastri have denied the reports with the India captain terming the rumours “baffling”.

Rohit doesn’t follow Kohli on Instagram and recently he unfollowed Anushka Sharma — wife of India skipper too, which added fuel to the rift rumours.

However, Kohli still follows Rohit on the picture sharing website, but not his wife Ritika Sajdeh.

Anushka also doesn’t follow Ritika and Rohit on Instagram and same is the case with Ritika who doesn’t follow the Indian skipper and his wife.

India skipper Virat Kohli calls Kane Williamson special and the New Zealand skipper says his Indian counterpart is a superstar. In the modern era of cut throat competition where every inch counts, the mutual admiration that Kohli and Williamson share is indeed a lesson for youngsters looking to play the gentlemans game.

Speaking on the eve of the first semi-final of the 2019 World Cup, Kohli was the first one to point out how he always saw talent in Williamson. In fact, even as scribes asked him about playing against Williamson in the U19 World Cup in 2008, the India skipper went back to the 2007 U19 Test match he played against New Zealand to recollect his first memory of the Kiwi skipper.

“It’s not even 2008, I remember in 2007, we went to New Zealand and we were playing an U19 Test match and he played a shot off one of our fast bowlers, who was quick, off the back foot and I remember standing in slips and telling guys standing with me, “I have never seen anyone play a shot like that” and he was special, along with a couple more guys, who didn’t make it surprisingly.

“But he was always the stand-out player and you could see when we played New Zealand in New Zealand on that U19 tour and the World Cup again, he was quite special for them. So we always knew he has the special ability to go all the way and now he’s controlling the tempo of the game for New Zealand. Every game that he plays, he’s contributing so well. He is a lovely guy. We get along very well,” he pointed.

Williamson too, had some really good things to say when asked about the Indian skipper who has evolved over the years and is an absolute run-machine at present.

“He was a formidable player, growing up — that seems odd to say because we were at the same age playing against each other on a number of occasions and then to go into international cricket at a youngish age, then IPL and these different sorts of things.

“So it’s obviously been a pleasure watching Virat play and evolve into the superstar that he is,” he smiled.

As the two captains gear up for one of their biggest challenges in their leadership careers, the act of appreciating genuine talent definitely is one that the future stars would look to imbibe.

Southampton, June 23 India captain Virat Kohli admitted that his team made to work extremely hard by Afghanistan and things didn’t go as per plan during their narrow 11-run win in their fifth World Cup match in Southampton.

On Saturday, the Indian batting line-up, consisting of the heavyweights like Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni and Kohli, was seen struggling against the Afghan bowlers, especially the spinners. India had to fight for each and every run and were able to post a below-par total of 224 at the Ageas Bowl. It was a fine display of bowling by Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami that India managed to win a nervy battle as they bowled Afghanistan out for 213.

“This game was way more important to be honest as I said it didn’t go as plan. But when things don’t go your way, you need to show some character and bounce back and fight till the last ball and that shows the character of the team. We take a lot of heart from this win and take the confidence going forward,” said Kohli after the match.

Talking about the Indian batting, Kohli said that it was a difficult wicket to bat on and run-scoring was not easy.

“We have been playing some good cricket and you expect yourself to win the toss and put big runs on the board and then you see the pitch being slow with three quality spinners in the opposition, I felt 270 should have been ideal and thought 250 would have been par,” said Kohli.

“A team like Afghanistan who has a lot of talent doesn’t let you play the way you want to play. Everyone had collective belief that we can win this one. They really put pressure on us in the middle overs and as I said our shot selection could have been a lot better,” he added.

Afghanistan were always in the hunt during their chase and it required some special bowling spell from all the Indian bowlers to help their team earn their fourth win in the ongoing tournament.

“It’s simple. We wanted to use him (Bumrah) smartly when the conditions allow. He gets a longer spell and because he can pick wickets in the spell he can get you quick wickets. He is the bowler who can do the damage at any stage of the innings and the opposition knows that as well. The communication was to finish him off at 49th over so that Shami has enough runs to defend in the last over and yeah the plan worked really well today. Keeping Chahal back also worked,” said the Indian skipper.

The 32-year-old was also full of praise for Shami, who was included in the side for injured Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Shami returned with figures of 4/40 in his 9.5 overs, which included a hat-trick as well.

“All in all, the bowling performance was outstanding. Everyone’s waiting for an opportunity and I think Shami was really good today, especially his first spell, he was making the ball do more than anyone else today. Vijay Shankar has come in and he showed intent and he is fielding really well. It’s an honour for everyone to represent their country in the World Cup,” said Kohli.

India will now take on West Indies on June 27 at the Old Trafford.