Virat Kohli to play his 100th ODI at the home soil, join the list of legendary players MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj
During the second and penultimate match of the series on Wednesday (February 9), Virat Kohli will play his 100th ODI at home, his 259th overall. Kohli will become the 36th cricketer to achieve the special feat in the shorter format when he plays his 100th ODI on home soil. As a result, he will join Tendulkar, MS Dhoni, Mohammed Azharuddin, and Yuvraj Singh on an elite list by becoming only the fifth Indian to play 100 ODIs at home. The list is topped by Tendulkar (164 matches), Dhoni (127), Azharuddin (113), and Yuvraj (108 matches).
After the South Africa Tests earlier this year, Virat Kohli stepped down as Team India’s captain. Rohit Sharma replaced Kohli as limited-overs captain, and Kohli was expected to return to his usual dominant best when Rohit-led India faced Kieron Pollard-led West Indies in the three-match ODI series opener, on Sunday (February 6), in Ahmedabad.
The recent history of Kohli in white-ball formats has been good. Despite this, he has not scored a century in international cricket since 2019. The last time he scored an ODI century was during India’s August 2019 tour of the West Indies. Therefore, he was expected to go bonkers against the Windies (against whom he averages 70.09) in the series opener, but he fell for an eight-ball 4.
On the verge of joining Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh and Md Azharuddin in an elite group, Kohli will play the second and penultimate ODI at the same venue; that is, the Narendra Modi Cricket Stadium, Ahmedabad.
Kohli has played 99 ODIs, scoring 5,022 runs at an average of 60, including 19 centuries and 25 half-centuries. He is a genius player with a strike rate of 96.68.