Massive Sachin Tendulkar record in sight for Virat Kohli in series vs Australia, could surpass Ricky Ponting in 1st ODI
Virat Kohli ended his century drought in Test cricket and will now be looking to get back to the kind of form he hit at the turn of the year in ODIs.
Virat Kohli may have gone more than three years without an international century but the former India captain has gone on a bit of a spree since breaking that drought in the 2022 Asia Cup. Kohli scored his first ever T20I century in the tournament and then went on a run of scoring three centuries in four ODIs at the turn of the year.
While he then had a rather indifferent series against New Zealand, which was India's last ODI assignment before their recently-concluded four-Test series against Australia, Kohli looked more steady than most on pitches that heavily favoured spinners in the first three matches before finally scoring his first ton in the longest format since November 2019. Kohli ended up scoring 186 off 422 balls as the match ended in a draw and India won the series 2-1.
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India now face Australia in a three-match ODI series starting on Thursday and Kohli will be looking to get back to the kind of form he hit at the turn of the year. Kohli currently sits on 46 centuries in ODIs, which means that he could well equal Sachin Tendulkar's record for most ODI centuries. Tendulkar scored an astonishing 49 ODI centuries in his illustrious international career.
While scoring three centuries in three matches against an opposition as strong as Australia may seem improbable, Kohli has a far more realistic record in sight which he could surpass in the first ODI itself. Kohli could surpass former Australia captain Ricky Ponting in the list of batters with most runs in ODIs at home. Kohli has scored 5358 runs in 107 matches while Ponting had scored 5406 runs in 153 matches. Kohli currently sits third on that list which is headed by Tendulkar, who had scored 6976 runs in 164 matches.
Kohli is also 191 runs away from becoming the fifth batter to complete 13,000 career ODI runs after Tendulkar (18,426), Kumar Sangakkara (14,234), Ponting (13,704), and Sanath Jayasuriya (13,430). If Kohli manages to do it in this series, he will become the fastest to get there by some distance. Tendulkar was the quickest to get there in 321 innings (330 matches). Kohli currently sits on 262 innings in 271 matches. Kohli is currently the fifth highest run scorer of all time in ODI cricket and his average of 57.69 and strike rate of 93.77 are both the highest among any of the batters in the top 10.
