Virat Kohli and others with 20 ODI hundreds

Kohli and others with 20 ODI hundreds

Virat Kohli scored his 20th One-Day International (ODI) century on October 17, 2014 against West Indies at Dharamsala just in his 133rd innings. He became the quickest to reach the milestone, Bharath Seervi compares his mark with others who scored 20 centuries.

Virat Kohli has been is scoring centuries in ODIs with ease. He made his debut on August 18, 2008, scored his maiden century on 24 December, 2009 and quickly he reached his 20th ODI century on October 17, 2014. It took his just 133 innings to get to the milestone of 20 ODI centuries.

The landmark has been reached by only seven other cricketers in the past and all of them got there in much more innings than Kohli. The next quickest batsman to 20 ODI centuries is Sachin Tendulkar who got there in his 197th innings — in other words, a whopping 64 innings more! The table below lists down the number of innings for each ODI century mark of those who scored 20 and more centuries.

Number of innings for each century mark:

The last row in the table shows the number of innings from maiden ODI ton to the 20th. It is well-known that Tendulkar, who had started much lower down the order, scored his first century in his 76th ODI innings. His frequency increased heavily after on and he reached his 20^th century in 197^th innings which is 122 innings after his first ODI century. But Kohli has surpassed him even with that criterion. Kohli scored his first ODI century in his 13th innings and 20^th century in 133rd, which means he had taken 121 innings to reach 20 hundreds after he had scored the first (the corresponding number for Tendulkar is 122).

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The others to score 20 ODI centuries — Sourav Ganguly, Saeed Anwar, Ricky Ponting, Sanath Jayasuriya, Herschelle Gibbs, and Chris Gayle — all required significantly more innings to get to the mark. Jayasuriya took the maximum, 350 innings, to get to the milestone.

Career aggregates at the point of 20 ODI centuries:

Kohli has the highest average, highest strike rate, least number of runs, least number of innings and least number of half-centuries at the end of 20 ODI centuries among all the other seven who got to the same milestone. His average of 51.57 easily surpasses those of the others. The next best at that point was Ponting’s 42.74.

The 20th ODI century:

Tendulkar was the first to complete 20 ODI centuries. He reached there with 118 not out against Zimbabwe at Sharjah on November 8, 1998. The next to get there was another Indian — Tendulkar’s opening partner Ganguly — in ICC World Cup 2003 against Namibia (Tendulkar scored his 34th hundred in the same match).

In the same World Cup, Anwar reached his 20th ODI century against India at Centurion. Ponting scored his 20th century at the famous match at Johannesburg where Australia scored 434 but could not defend it. Jayasuriya emulated him in the England tour at the Oval the same year.

Gibbs got there in 2008 at Johannesburg against West Indies. Once his issues with the board were sorted out, Gayle reached the milestone in 2012 against New Zealand.

Number of days from Maiden ODI ton to 20th ODI ton

Though Kohli took the least number of innings from both debut and maiden ton to 20th ton, Tendulkar required the least number of days (1,521) from his maiden ODI ton to the 20th. Kohli needed 1,758. However, Kohli has required the least number of days (2,251) from debut to the milestone.

Kohli’s competitor: Hashim Amla

Kohli has scored centuries at a greater pace than almost all ODI legends. However, he is being given good competition from Hashim Amla. At present, Amla has 15 centuries from 92 innings and 4,621 runs at an average of 54.36. Let us compare the number of innings they took to score their ODI centuries.

If Amla goes in the same form, he will reach 20 ODI centuries in quite less number of innings than Kohli took. It will suffice if he takes 54 or less innings to score those five hundreds.

(Bharath Seervi is a cricket statistician who is obsessed with digging numbers, facts and records related to the game. An active member of Society of Cricket Statisticians of India, he blogs at www.cricketseervistats.blogspot.com. He can be followed on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SeerviBharath and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SeerviCricket)