New Delhi:
Virat Kohli continued to break records just for fun as he achieved another special milestone during India’s win in the Napier ODI against New Zealand which they won by eight wickets. Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan (75*) shared a brilliant 91-run stand and it complimented the efforts of Kuldeep Yadav (4/39) and Mohammed Shami (3/19) as India dominated New Zealand in all departments. While Dhawan notched up a fifty after nine innings, Kohli continued his sublime run-making form. After starting off cautiously following Rohit Sharma’s wicket and a bizarre break due to sunshine shining directly at the batsmen, Kohli opened up with a couple of brilliant boundaries off Lockie Ferguson.
In the 16th over bowled by left-arm orthodox bowler Mitchell Santner, Kohli blasted a drive past extra cover to reach 23. With that boundary, Kohli went past West Indies legend Brian Lara’s ODI tally of 10405 runs. Kohli made smooth progress and he managed to overturn an LBW decision on review. The Indian captain looked good for his 49th fifty but he top-edged a short ball from Ferguson to perish for 45.
While Lara took 299 games to reach 10405 runs, Kohli has crossed this mark in just 220 games. Out of all the batsmen who have gone past 10000 runs, only Kohli and MS Dhoni have an average in excess of 50. Kohli’s strike-rate of 92 is the best among all batsmen, with Sri Lanka dasher Sanath Jayasuriya striking at 91. Sachin Tendulkar leads the tally with 18426 runs from 463 ODIs followed by Sri Lanka legend Kumar Sangakkara who hit 14234 runs in 404 ODIs.
Kohli has amassed plenty of records in ODIs. He is second in the all-time tally of ODI centuries, with 39 tons. He already has 64 international tons, which is the third-most behind Tendulkar and former Australia skipper Ricky Ponting. During his last century against Australia in Adelaide, Kohli affirmed himself as the chase master in ODIs again. This was his 24th in a chase and India have lost just three times, once to Australia in Canberra, against New Zealand in Napier in 2014 and recently against West Indies in Pune.
