Sydneydemonstrated his class on the third day of the fifth and final Ashes Test, smashing his 37th century in the format. In his remarkable career, he has played 123 Test matches, which is the same number of games he played for India prior to declaring his retirement from the format last year. In light of this, let's examine Smith and Kohli's statistics comparison following 123 Tests:
Smith, who has shown incredible poise at different points in his career, is clearly winning this battle. Although Kohli wasn't far behind until 2019, things didn't go as planned during his final five or six years in the white team. The former captain of India scored a few hundreds during this time, but he was never reliable enough. Before retiring prior to the 2025 England tour, his career average also dropped below 50.
In terms of statistics, Kohli amassed 30 hundreds and 31 fifties while scoring 9230 runs at an average of 46.85 in 123 Test matches. Smith is getting closer to reaching 11,000 runs in his career in the same number of Test matches. In Sydney, he scored his 37th Test century with an average of over 56.
After 123 Test cricket matches, Steve Smith and Virat Kohli's stats show who is winning.ParticipantsMatchesInningsRunsAverageTop Score50s and 100sSmith, Steve123*2191072556.4423944/37Virat Kohli123210923046.85254*31/30Is Steve Smith able to surpass the record for most runs scored in Test cricket?Steve Smith is quietly making progress while the cricket world closely monitors his rise on the list of players with the most runs in Test cricket. Smith is currently far behind Tendulkar on the list, but Root is currently 1984 runs behind. At 36, he is more than 5000 runs behind Tendulkar, and it doesn't seem likely that he will finish his career as the top run scorer in the game's longest format.
It's unclear, though, if Smith will reach 12,000 runs before hanging up his boots in international cricket.
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