Most runs in international cricket: the all-time list, and the second place that just changed hands

Sachin Tendulkar’s 34,357 runs across Tests, ODIs and T20Is remain the most by anyone in international cricket, and the margin is not close. What has changed, and what most versions of this list have not caught up with, is second place: Virat Kohli went past Kumar Sangakkara in January 2026 and is now second on the all-time list, the only active player ever to have passed 28,000 international runs.

That matters for how the rest of the list reads. For a decade this was an archive — six retired batters in a fixed order. It now has two active players in the top eight, and one of them is climbing.

Most runs in international cricket: the all-time list

#	Player	Country	Runs	Still playing?
1	Sachin Tendulkar	India	34,357	Retired 2013
2	Virat Kohli	India	28,359	Yes, ODIs only
3	Kumar Sangakkara	Sri Lanka	28,016	Retired 2015
4	Ricky Ponting	Australia	27,483	Retired 2012
5	Mahela Jayawardene	Sri Lanka	25,957	Retired 2015
6	Jacques Kallis	South Africa	25,534	Retired 2014
7	Rahul Dravid	India	24,208	Retired 2012
8	Joe Root	England	22,413	Yes
9	Brian Lara	West Indies	22,358	Retired 2007

Kohli’s total runs to the Lord’s ODI of 20 July 2026. Root’s is a recent published figure and is moving; every other line is a closed career and will not change again.

Kohli passed Sangakkara in January 2026

It happened on 11 January 2026, in the first ODI against New Zealand at Vadodara. Kohli needed 42 runs to go past Sangakkara’s 28,016 and made 93 off 91, finishing the day on 28,068. He reached 28,000 international runs in 624 innings, where Tendulkar had taken 644 — the fastest anyone has got there.

Why the usual “Kohli will catch Tendulkar” maths is wrong

Nearly every page carrying this list works out Kohli’s remaining gap by taking his runs per year across all formats — usually something like 1,200 to 1,500 — and dividing. That gives three or four years and it is nonsense, because it describes a player who no longer exists. Kohli retired from T20Is in June 2024 and from Tests in May 2025. Everything he adds from here has to come in fifty-over cricket.

Do it properly and the answer changes shape. He needs 5,998 runs. He has scored 14,941 in 314 ODIs, which is 47.6 per match, so the gap is about 126 more ODIs. India play somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five ODIs a year, so that is six to eight seasons and would take him into his mid-forties.

There is a cleaner way to put the same point. To pass 34,357, Kohli would have to finish on 20,939 ODI runs. Tendulkar’s own ODI world record is 18,426. Kohli would need to beat the greatest fifty-over aggregate in history by more than 2,500 runs just to draw level across all cricket, because the 6,691 runs he conceded in Tests can now only be repaid in white-ball innings. The full breakdown is on our Kohli vs Tendulkar comparison.

The settled part of the list, and the part that is still moving

Positions one to six are finished business. Five of those six are retired and Kohli, at 28,359, is 343 clear of Sangakkara and 5,998 short of Tendulkar, so nothing there will change for years in either direction.

The interesting end is seventh to ninth. Joe Root has already gone past Brian Lara and is close enough to Rahul Dravid that the two of them can swap places inside a single Test. Root is the only man on this list still playing Test cricket, so he is the one to watch: on current trajectory he is the likeliest to break into the top six, and he is doing it mostly in Tests, which is the opposite of how Kohli is climbing.

What Tendulkar’s 34,357 actually consists of

The record is a product of length as much as weight of runs. Tendulkar played 664 international matches across 24 years, from a debut against Pakistan in 1989 to his last Test in 2013: 200 Tests, which is still the most by any player, 463 ODIs and a single T20I. He finished with 100 international centuries and 164 fifties.

His 15,921 Test runs are the most in the format’s history, and his 18,426 ODI runs are the most in that one. He is the only player who holds the career run record in two of the three formats at once, which is why the combined record is so far out of reach: anyone chasing it has to be exceptional in both.

Quick answers

Who has scored the most runs in international cricket? Sachin Tendulkar, with 34,357 across Tests, ODIs and T20Is.

Who is second? Virat Kohli, on 28,359. He passed Kumar Sangakkara’s 28,016 on 11 January 2026.

Is anyone on the list still playing? Two. Kohli plays ODIs only, and Joe Root is still playing Test cricket.

Can Kohli break the record? He needs 5,998 more runs and can only score them in ODIs, which works out at roughly 126 more matches, or six to eight seasons.

How many players have scored 25,000 international runs? Six: Tendulkar, Kohli, Sangakkara, Ponting, Jayawardene and Kallis.

For more on the individual formats, see our pages on the most runs in ODI cricket, the most ODI runs for India and the most sixes in international cricket.

Featured photo: AFP / Munir uz Zaman