Who is the next contender for Virat Kohli’s ODI century record? Competition begins in the new generation
Key Points:
It is considered very difficult to break Virat Kohli’s record of 53 ODI centuries. Among the active players, only Shubman Gill is seen as the batsman whose form, average and century rate present him as the strongest contender for Kohli in the future.
Delhi: Suddenly Virat Kohli’s 100 has come into discussion. He scored his 83rd international 100 with 135 runs in the first ODI against South Africa and the next 100 was scored in the very next match. Now his total became 84 out of 100 and with this many new records were created. Of these, he now has 53 scores of 100 in One Day International alone. Now ODI is the only format in which Virat Kohli plays. Neither is anyone equal to him in counting 100s in ODIs nor has anyone scored so many 100s in one format.
Virat Kohli has the most centuries in ODI
By making the record of most 100 scores in a single format, Virat Kohli left behind Sachin Tendulkar, who has 51 scores of 100 in Tests. List of most 100s in one format in international cricket:
53: Virat Kohli in One Day International
51: Sachin Tendulkar in Test
49: Sachin Tendulkar in One Day International
45: Jacques Kallis in test
Now Virat is second after Sachin Tendulkar’s 100 International 100. If we look at the top 10 batsmen who have scored most 100s in international cricket today, then only Virat Kohli and Joe Root are active and only these records can be changed further: 1. Sachin Tendulkar 100, 2. Virat Kohli 84, 3. Ricky Ponting 71, 4. Kumar Sangakkara 63, 5. Jacques Kallis 62, 6. Joe Root 57 (including Gaba’s 100), 7. Hashim Amla 55, 8. Mahela Jayawardene 54, 9. Brian Lara 53, 10. Rahul Dravid 48.
Who can break Kohli’s ODI century record?
After reading all these records, the question arises that will anyone ever be able to surpass Virat Kohli’s record of 53 scores of 100 in One Day Internationals? Among the currently active cricketers, he is adept at scoring 100 in Root Test but not in ODI. That’s why while his name is 40 out of 100 in Tests, he has only 20 in ODIs. After Virat, Rohit Sharma’s name is among the active cricketers and he has 33 ODI International 100. He will not break Virat’s record.
Potential contenders in the next generation
Therefore, someone from the next generation can become a contender and then people like Shubman Gill and Babar Azam are mentioned. Of these, the way Babar is struggling at the moment, no one knows how much he will be able to improve his record of 20 International 100s in his 140 ODIs. So in such a situation, Shubman Gill and along with him Henry Brook seem to be the only players of the next generation who can think of breaking the record of Virat Kohli’s ODI century. By the way, if Virat plays till 2027 World Cup then the count of 100 can be more than 53.
Virat scored these 53 centuries in 295 innings, that is, on an average, one century in every 5.57 innings. In comparison, Tendulkar had played more than 9 innings to score a century. Rohit Sharma took more than 8 innings for every century. It is clear that to break Virat’s record, a young batsman will have to make a career of 250-300 innings in this format and also have a better century rate than Virat and an international cricket career of 15-18 years. In such a situation, Shubman Gill seems to be a contender on this record alone. Shubman’s average in ODIs is around 56, 8 centuries in 58 ODIs i.e. a century in almost every 7.25 innings. Brook has talent but has scored only two 100s in 35 innings. So only Shubhaman is left who is showing signs of crossing every criterion of this record.
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