The dramatic rise of birthday boy Virat Kohli, who turned 25 today, is admirable as the Delhi dasher is now considerd the most devastating batsman in ODI cricket in world at the moment.
This fact was confirmed by ICC on Sunday when they realeased ICC rankings where Virat Kohli is ranked number one batsman in ODI cricket after a superlative batting performance against Australia in the home series, in which he scored 344 runs at an average 0f 114.66. Kohli had scores of 61, 100*, 68 , 115* and 0 respectively in his last five ODIs innings. virat kohli qualification
He has achieved the number-one spot for the first time in his career. Kohli has now become the third Indian batsman to hold the number-one batting rank in ODI cricket, after Sachin Tendulkar and skipper MS Dhoni.
Kohli, who is trying to find his feet as a Test batsman, has stamped his authority in the shorter version of the game in a great fashion as he has scored 17 centuries at an average of over 52 and a strike-rate of over 88.
Kohli has been showing signs of his ability since his U-19 days, as India had won the 2007 U-19 WC in Malaysia under Kohli’s captaincy, but now he has raised his stroke-making to another level which was quite evident in the recently-concluded ODI series against Australia.
Kohli came close to scoring 1,000 ODI runs (995) in 2010 but hasn’t missed that landmark in the next three years – 1,381 in 2011, 1,026 in 2012 and 1,033 in 2013 till date.
Kohli has also smashed 13 centuries during the aforementioned time peroid, and also became the quickest to reach 17 centuries, in 58 fewer innings than former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly.
Virat Facts
– Virat Kohli is fastest Indian to score a hundred in ODI cricket. In fact Kohli holds the record two of the top three fastest hundred by an Indian. He first scored 100 of just 52 deliveries in Jaipur and repeated the feat when he amassed another hundred in 61 deliveries in Nagpur within 15 days. Virender Sehwag is second on that list with his hundred in 60 deliveries against New Zealand in Hamilton.
– Kohli is the first batsman to make five successive scores of 50 or more in ODIs on two separate occasions. In his last five innings, he has scores of 68*, 61, 100*, 68 and 115*. Between February 28 and July 21, 2012, he had scored four centuries and a 66 in five consecutive innings.
– Amongst the batsmen with 2,000 runs or more in successful ODI chases, Kohli’s average of 86.53 is the second highest, next only to MS Dhoni’s 101.28 (2,127 runs in 55 innings).
– Since January 2009, Virat has managed 4,760 runs at an average of 53.48, including 17 hundreds and 25 fifties, in 113 matches. His aggregate and centuries are records by any batsman since January 2009.
– Kohli aggregated 1000 runs in ODIs in 2013, when he crossed 82 runs in this innings. This is the third consecutive calendar year in which Kohli has aggregated 1000 or more ODI runs. He became the fourth batsman in ODIs after Sourav Ganguly (1997-2000), Sachin Tendulkar (1996-98) and MS Dhoni (2007-09) to hit 1000 or more ODI runs in three or more consecutive calendar years.
– Kohli scored his 11th hundred in chases and moved to second place, with Chris Gayle, in the list of batsmen with most centuries in chases. Sachin Tendulkar heads the list with 17 hundreds in chases. All of Kohli’s 11 hundreds in chases have resulted in wins. Only Tendulkar, with 14 hundreds in successful chases, has a better record. Five of these hundreds for Kohli have come chasing targets of 300 or more.
| Virat Kohli fact file in numbers | ||||||||
| Matches | Innings | Runs | High Score | Average | 100 | 50 | Strike Rate | |
| Overall | 119 | 113 | 4919 | 183 | 51.77 | 17 | 26 | 88.48 |
| Matches which India won | 74 | 71 | 3708 | 183 | 68.66 | 16 | 15 | 93.04 |
| Successful run Chases | 46 | 44 | 2596 | 183 | 86.53 | 11 | 12 | 95.72 |
| Year wise runs scored | ||||||||
| Year |
Matches |
Innings |
Runs |
High Score |
Average |
Strike Rate |
100 |
50 |
| 2008 |
5 |
5 |
159 |
54 |
31.80 |
66.52 |
0 |
1 |
| 2009 |
10 |
8 |
325 |
107 |
54.16 |
84.41 |
1 |
2 |
| 2010 |
25 |
24 |
995 |
118 |
47.38 |
85.11 |
3 |
7 |
| 2011 |
34 |
34 |
1381 |
117 |
47.62 |
85.56 |
4 |
8 |
| 2012 |
17 |
17 |
1026 |
183 |
68.40 |
93.78 |
5 |
3 |
| 2013 |
28 |
25 |
1033 |
115* |
54.36 |
97.63 |
4 |
5 |