Virat Kohli vs Sachin Tendulkar: the full stats comparison, and what is still in play

Sachin Tendulkar finished on 34,357 runs and 100 international centuries. Virat Kohli is on 28,359 runs and 85 centuries, and is now second on the all-time list. But the comparison people are still arguing about has quietly stopped being a three-format question: Kohli retired from T20Is in June 2024 and from Tests in May 2025, so two of his three columns are closed for good. Only the ODI column can still move.

That is the part most comparison pages have not caught up with. They are still written as though Kohli is chasing Tendulkar everywhere at once. He is not. Whatever ground he makes up from here has to come in fifty-over cricket, and that single constraint decides which of Tendulkar’s records are genuinely reachable and which are now out of range. Below is every figure across the three formats, followed by the arithmetic on what is left.

Virat Kohli vs Sachin Tendulkar: the overall international record

Virat Kohli	Criteria	Sachin Tendulkar
562	Matches	664
28,359	Runs	34,357
85	Centuries	100
2 of 3 formats closed	Career status	Retired 2013

Kohli’s Test and T20I figures are final. His ODI figures run to the Lord’s ODI of 20 July 2026 and are the only ones on this page that can change. Tendulkar’s have not moved since November 2013.

Kohli went past Sangakkara in January 2026

The headline that belongs at the top of this comparison, and that the older versions of this page missed entirely: on 11 January 2026, in the first ODI against New Zealand at Vadodara, Kohli passed Kumar Sangakkara’s 28,016 to become the second-highest run-scorer in men’s international cricket. He got there with 93 off 91 balls, moving to 28,068, and he did it in 624 innings against Tendulkar’s 644 — the fastest anyone has reached 28,000 international runs.

So the order at the top of the all-time list now reads Tendulkar 34,357, Kohli, then Sangakkara 28,016, Ricky Ponting 27,483, Mahela Jayawardene 25,957 and Jacques Kallis 25,534. Second place is settled. First place is a different question, and the rest of this page is about why.

Virat Kohli vs Sachin Tendulkar in Tests

This one is finished. Kohli announced his Test retirement on 12 May 2025, aged 36, closing a fourteen-year red-ball career.

Virat Kohli	Criteria	Sachin Tendulkar
123	Matches	200
9,230	Runs	15,921
46.85	Average	53.79
30	Centuries	51
31	Fifties	68
254*	Highest score	248*

Tendulkar wins the format on every line except the highest score, where Kohli’s unbeaten 254 against South Africa at Pune in 2019 edges the 248 not out Tendulkar made against Bangladesh in 2004. The 6,691-run gap is the single biggest reason the overall record is now so hard to reach: it is a deficit Kohli can no longer do anything about, because he will not bat in a Test again. Kohli’s seven double centuries are the most by an India batter, ahead of the six Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag each made.

Virat Kohli vs Sachin Tendulkar in ODIs

The live column, and the one where Kohli has the better of it on most measures.

Virat Kohli	Criteria	Sachin Tendulkar
314	Matches	463
14,941	Runs	18,426
Just under 59	Average	44.83
93.8	Strike rate	86.24
54	Centuries	49
77	Fifties	96
183	Highest score	200*

Two notes on that table, because mixing figures from different dates is how these pages go wrong. Kohli’s matches, runs and centuries run to 20 July 2026. His strike rate, fifties and highest score are from the last published snapshot three ODIs earlier, so the first two of those can only have edged up.

Kohli already holds the record this format is best known for. He passed Tendulkar’s 49 ODI hundreds with his 50th against New Zealand in the 2023 World Cup semi-final and has since taken it to 54. He averages roughly fourteen runs an innings more than Tendulkar did, at a strike rate seven and a half points higher, though Tendulkar built his career through the 1990s, when a run rate of five an over was a good one. Tendulkar’s 200 not out at Gwalior in 2010 was the first double century in men’s ODI history. For the full picture on the aggregate, see our page on the most runs in ODI cricket.

Virat Kohli vs Sachin Tendulkar in T20Is

There is no contest here and it is worth saying plainly rather than filling a table with a blank column. Tendulkar played exactly one T20I, against South Africa at Johannesburg in December 2006, and made 10. The format arrived at the end of his career and he never went back to it.

Kohli’s T20I career is also now closed. He retired immediately after the 2024 T20 World Cup final, in which he made 76 off 59 and was named player of the match, and finished with 4,188 runs in 125 matches at 48.69, striking at 137.04, with one century and 38 fifties. He also made 1,292 runs across his six T20 World Cups, and left the tournament as its leading run-scorer.

What Kohli would still need, and how long it would take

Because everything now has to come in ODIs, the remaining chases can be turned into a single unit: how many more fifty-over innings each one needs at Kohli’s own career rates. He has scored 14,941 runs in 314 ODIs, which is 47.6 runs per match, and 54 hundreds in 314 matches, which is one every 5.8 matches.

Record	Gap	ODIs needed at his career rate
Tendulkar’s ODI runs (18,426)	3,485 runs	About 73
Tendulkar’s 100 international centuries	15 centuries	About 87
Tendulkar’s international runs (34,357)	5,998 runs	About 126

India play somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five ODIs in a year, so 73 more is four or five seasons and would take Kohli past 41. That one is demanding but not fanciful. The century record needs 87, and every one of those 15 hundreds would have to be an ODI hundred, which would leave him on 69 in the format. He already owns that record at 54; getting to 100 international centuries means extending his own mark by another 28 per cent.

The overall run record is the one that has quietly slipped away, and the cleanest way to state it is this: to pass Tendulkar’s 34,357, Kohli would have to finish on 20,939 ODI runs. That is 2,513 clear of Tendulkar’s own ODI world record. He would have to beat the fifty-over record by more than two thousand runs simply to draw level across all cricket, because the 6,691 he gave up in Tests can now only be repaid in white-ball innings. At 126 more ODIs, six to eight seasons, he would be in his mid-forties.

Why we have not printed a combined average or strike rate

Most versions of this comparison put a single all-formats average and strike rate at the top, usually something like 52.55 and 79.59 for Kohli against 48.52 and 79.94 for Tendulkar. Those numbers are arithmetic, but they do not mean anything. They blend a 123-Test career with a 125-match T20I career for one player, and a 200-Test career with a single T20I for the other. A strike rate that averages Tendulkar’s 463 ODIs with his one T20 innings is not describing how either man batted. The per-format tables above are the honest version, and they are the ones worth arguing over.

Quick answers

Who has more runs, Kohli or Tendulkar? Tendulkar, by 5,998 — 34,357 to Kohli’s 28,359 in international cricket.

Has Kohli passed Tendulkar in anything? Yes. He holds the record for ODI centuries, with 54 to Tendulkar’s 49, and he averages far more in ODIs, just under 59 against 44.83. He also went past Tendulkar’s mark for the fastest to 28,000 international runs, reaching it in 624 innings to Tendulkar’s 644.

Is Kohli still playing? In ODIs only. He retired from T20Is in June 2024 and from Tests in May 2025.

Can Kohli reach 100 international centuries? He needs 15 more and can only make them in ODIs, which on his career rate is about 87 further matches — four to six seasons.

Who has the better Test record? Tendulkar, comfortably: 15,921 runs at 53.79 with 51 centuries, against 9,230 at 46.85 with 30. Kohli’s highest score of 254 not out is the one Test line he wins.

For more on where both men sit in the wider record books, see our pages on Virat Kohli’s records, the most runs in ODI cricket and the most sixes in international cricket.

Photo credit: Alamy