Virat Kohli played a true captain’s knock and scored a century in the first ODI against New Zealand at Wankhede. But, with his 31st ODI century Kohli equalled a unique record of his Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) teammate AB de Villiers. The Indian skipper played his 200th ODI. The 28-year-old became the second batsman after De Villiers to score a century in his 200th ODI. He also surpassed former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting to become the second-highest all-time century scorer in ODIs. He is only behind India’s cricketing legend who has scored 49 centuries in ODIs.
Kohli is by far the leading run-scorer in the ODIs in the year 2017. He crossed the 1000-mark quite easily. While Joe Root, Quinton de Kock, Rohit Sharma and Faf du Plessis have not yet touched the 100-run mark yet. He also became the first Indian batsman after 21 years to score a century at Wankhede stadium. The previous century on this ground was scored by Tendulkar in 1996.
Kohli scored 121 runs from 125 balls with the help of 9 fours and 2 sixes. He scored at a strike rate of 96.80. Kohli came into bat as Shikhar Dhawan fell early. He kept losing partners as Trent Boult bowled a fiery spell. Kohli did well to play out Boult’s first spell.
ODI No.200
Century No. 31 #Virat200 pic.twitter.com/C1ZmBEKyzD— BCCI (@BCCI) October 22, 2017
He shared partnerships with Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik and MS Dhoni to rebuild the innings and bring the innings back on track. Later on, in the innings, Hardik Pandya and Bhuvneshwar Kumar tried to increase the scoring rate and get India to a fighting total in the first ODI at Wankhede.
Kohli is the only batsman who is expected to break Tendulkar’s record of most number of centuries in ODIs. He is well of other contenders, South African opener Hashim Amla and Mr.360, De Villiers who have 26 and 25 centuries.
