New Delhi. Virat Kohli's return to ODI cricket has come with a special record. As soon as he took the field in the first ODI being played against West Indies in Thiruvananthapuram, Kohli broke the 28-year-old record of former Indian captain Mohammad Azharuddin. He has now become the player who has played the most matches for India in ODI against West Indies. Kohli achieved this feat as soon as he entered the first match of the three-match ODI series.
Actually, India and West Indies are face to face today i.e. on 27th September at the Greenfield International Stadium. This is Virat Kohli's 44th ODI match against West Indies. Earlier, the record of playing most ODIs against this team for India was in the name of Azharuddin, who played 43 matches against West Indies. In the list of players who have played most ODI matches against West Indies for India, Kapil Dev is at third place with 42 matches, Rahul Dravid is at fourth place with 40 matches and MS Dhoni is at fifth place with 39 matches. Sachin Tendulkar has also played 39 ODI matches against West Indies.
Chanderpaul's record on Kohli's target
It is noteworthy that the record of playing most number of matches in ODI matches played between India and West Indies is in the name of former West Indies captain Shivnarine Chanderpaul. He played a total of 46 ODI matches against India between 1994 and 2009. If Kohli takes the field in all three matches of the current series, he will equal Chanderpaul's record. Whereas, if we talk about the players who have played the most ODIs against West Indies, former Pakistan captains Javed Miandad and Wasim Akram are jointly at the top. Both have played 64-64 ODI matches against the Caribbean team.
Virat will create history as soon as he scores a century
For Kohli, this match is not limited to just making records. He has a chance to create history with the bat also. Kohli has so far scored 9 ODI centuries against West Indies. If he scores a century in the very first match, he will become the first player in cricket history to score 10 centuries in ODI against this team. Apart from this, Kohli is also just 59 runs away from completing 15 thousand ODI runs. He has 14941 runs in his name in 314 ODI matches. If he scores 59 runs in the first ODI, he will become only the second batsman in the world to complete 15 thousand runs in this format. Before him, only Sachin Tendulkar had achieved this feat.