Virat Kohli’s 97-ball unbeaten 103 against Bangladesh in Pune on Thursday took his One-day International centuries to a staggering 48, just one shy of the legend Sachin Tendulkar’s world record. Not just that, with Kohli in the line-up, India have become one of the best run chasers in world cricket at the moment. India have a win percent of 66.66 while chasing, way better than the second-placed team Bangladesh at 60.8
India win when Kohli hits a ton, mostlyVirat Kohli may still be one hundred short of Sachin Tendulkar’s ODI record but he already has seven more hundreds in winning causes for India. That works out into a fantastic win percentage of 83.33%, at par with former Australia captain Ricky Ponting (25 centuries out of 30 in winning causes) but still second to former South Africa opener Hashim Amla who, with 24 out of 27, has a staggering win percentage of 88.8% when he scored a century. Even more impressive is the breakdown of Kohli’s hundreds in winning causes: 18 at home, 17 away and five in neutral venues. In bilateral series, Kohli has hit 30 hundreds in wins along with 10 in tournaments featuring three or more nations.
Frequency of scoring centuriesA hundred at least every 10 ODI innings is the gold standard. Ricky Ponting at his prime, for instance, averaged a hundred every 12 innings. Sanath Jayasuriya was extremely prolific during the 1990s but with a stretched career, his frequency stood at 15 innings per hundred. Which makes Sachin Tendulkar (one every nine innings) the legend because his career spanned more than two decades and he was still scoring hundreds in his final year. Among contemporary batters, Rohit Sharma averages a hundred every eight innings but Kohli’s average of 5.68 innings per century (48 hundreds in 273 innings) places him in a league of his own.
{{/usCountry}}Frequency of scoring centuriesA hundred at least every 10 ODI innings is the gold standard. Ricky Ponting at his prime, for instance, averaged a hundred every 12 innings. Sanath Jayasuriya was extremely prolific during the 1990s but with a stretched career, his frequency stood at 15 innings per hundred. Which makes Sachin Tendulkar (one every nine innings) the legend because his career spanned more than two decades and he was still scoring hundreds in his final year. Among contemporary batters, Rohit Sharma averages a hundred every eight innings but Kohli’s average of 5.68 innings per century (48 hundreds in 273 innings) places him in a league of his own.
{{/usCountry}}Highest batting average in wins
For almost the entire 90s Sachin Tendulkar was kind of a one-man show for India. He averaged 56.63 as part of India’s 234 wins. But Michael Bevan topped him with 65.24 in 155 wins during the same era. AB de Villiers was the bedrock of the most of the wins strung together by South Africa in the last decade but MS Dhoni was the ultimate finisher, averaging 69 in 205 wins for India. Dhoni and de Villiers averaged more sixes per game but Virat Kohli has shone through because of his affinity for boundaries (1,247 fours in 273 innings, another record) and running between the wickets, both of which contributed to a stupendous average 74.97 in 174 wins for India.
Highest average in wins (at least 100 ODIs)
Batter Wins Avg
V Kohli 174 74.97
MS Dhoni 205 69
AB de Villiers 141 66.01
M Bevan 155 65.24
H Amla 108 64.46
The best in Kohli’s era
Kohli has stood head and shoulders above his peers in terms of scoring hundreds. And considering this was a time that also witnessed the advent and proliferation of T20s, it’s surprising that not many have been able to replicate their form across formats as well as Kohli did. The list is illustrious nevertheless, considering Amla — who was never really given his due in T20 — is the third highest scorer of hundreds since 2008. AB de Villiers has been consistent, Rohit Sharma has the highest ODI score (264) during this time but simply no one has come close to Kohli’s conversion.