Virat Kohli’s scorching 166* at Thiruvananthapuram set the tone for a hopeful World Cup year. This was his third ODI century in the past four innings. Virat Kohli’s streak started with a fine 113 against Bangladesh at Chattogram, was followed by another 113, this time against Sri Lanka at Guwahati, and ended yesterday with his 46th ODI tonne.
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This seemed like a flashback to the batter’s prime, when such runs were the norm. His 133* in Hobart in 2012, which helped India chase down a target of 321 in 36.4 overs against Sri Lanka, started a sequence of four hundred in five innings. Similarly, in the 2017/18 season, he had three ODI hundreds in four innings. In October 2018, the batsman smashed three consecutive ODI hundreds against the West Indies. As a result, his most recent performance is an indication that the batter may be back to his best.
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It is probably natural that this has occurred in his preferred format. Virat Kohli is the fifth-greatest ODI run-scorer, with the highest average (58.23) among hitters who have scored more than 5000 ODI runs. This is no small achievement, considering that he has a higher average than Sachin Tendulkar (44.83), MS Dhoni (50.57), AB de Villiers (53.5), and Michael Bevan (53.58). The hundred in Thiruvananthapuram was his 21st, passing Tendulkar and becoming the player with the most hundreds in a single nation.
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Sri Lanka is undoubtedly his favorite opponent; he has 10 ODI hundreds against them, the highest by any player against a single nation. Yesterday wasn’t only about Virat Kohli’s runs, but also how he achieved them. His strike rate was 150.9, the fourth time he ended with a strike rate of more than 150 in a hundred. He is the first Indian hitter to have done so on many occasions. This was also the seventh occasion he scored more than 150 runs in an ODI inning. In that regard, he has now equaled Tendulkar and Chris Gayle, with just Rohit Sharma (8) and David Warner (6) ahead of him.
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The superb performance was followed up by some spectacular fielding by India, as Sri Lanka was shot out for 73, giving the hosts a record triumph by 317 runs. The disparity between Kohli’s score and Sri Lanka’s innings was 93, the second-highest between individual innings and the opposition’s total in an ODI. India will be hoping that this enormous hit will help push their home World Cup campaign in the same way as Tendulkar’s 200* did a year before their historic triumph in 2011.
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