India, Dec. 1 -- Virat Kohli's 135 in Ranchi wasn't just about dragging India out of trouble against South Africa. It quietly tilted the balance of cricket's greatest statistical rivalry a little further in his favour. With that knock, Kohli moved to 52 ODI centuries and 83 international hundreds overall, tightening his grip on several records that once seemed permanently etched under Sachin Tendulkar's name.

Yet even after Ranchi, Tendulkar still sits atop a mountain range of numbers that no one, not even Kohli, is close to fully conquering. The story now is less "Kohli vs Sachin" and more "which Tendulkar peaks are actually under threat, and which are locked away for good?"

Kohli has already ripped up a bunch of Tendulkar benchmarks, ...