Virat Kohli – Second player to aggregate 1,000+ ODI runs in four consecutive calendar years

Indian batting sensation Virat Kohli has aggregated atleast 1,000 runs in each of the last four years in One-Day Internationals (ODI). Bharath Seervi lists the batsmen scoring 1,000+ ODI runs in consecutive years.

Virat Kohli continues to amass runs for India for the fourth consecutive year in ODIs. He reached the 1,000-run mark in the final ODI against Sri Lanka at Raipur on November 16, 2014. He now has 1,054 runs in 20 innings this year at an average of 58.55 with four hundreds and five half-centuries. This is the fourth consecutive year he has aggregated over 1,000 runs in ODIs. He scored 1,381 runs in 2011, 1,026 in 2012 and 1,268 in 2013.

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Virat Kohli’s ODI stats in the last four years

Hence, he has recorded 4,729 runs in 101 innings at an average of 54.98 with 17 tons in the last four years.

So how many others have aggregated atleast 1,000 runs in four consecutive calendar years?

Well, the answer is only one. Sourav Ganguly is the only other batsman to have done it. He achieved it from 1997 to 2000.

Most consecutive years aggregating 1,000+ runs in ODIs

Ganguly and Kohli are the only players to reach this feat in four consecutive years whereas Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni and Kumar Sangakkara have done it in three consecutive years. Kumar Sangakkara will make it four in four if he reaches the milestone by the end of this year. Ijaz Ahmed and Aravinda de Silva were the first batsmen to score 1,000+ ODI runs in a calendar year in consecutive years. They both did it in 1996 and 1997.

The Sri Lankans in the list, Kumar Sangakkara and Tillakaratne Dilshan, have a seven-match ODI series against England. Sangakkara requires 198 runs while Dilshan needs 367 runs to complete 1,000 runs in the current year.

Kohli has scored 1,000 runs in a calendar year four times in his career so far. Let us see who has done it the most number of times.

Scoring 1,000+ ODI runs in most number of calendar years

Tendulkar has the record of scoring alteast 1,000 ODI runs in seven different years. He did in 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2007. The next highest is six years with 1,000+ ODI runs by Ganguly and Ricky Ponting. Sangakkara has done it five times and may reach the sixth time by the end of this year.

As in the previous table, Sangakkara and Dilshan may do it by the end of the year.

It looks like, if Kohli bats the same way, he shall overcome Tendulkar by the end of this decade.

Number of occasions of 1,000+ ODI runs in a year by batsmen of each team

Records in an ODI calendar year:

Most matches – 43 by Rahul Dravid in 1999

Most runs – 1,894 by Sachin Tendulkar in 1998

Most 100s – Nine by Sachin Tendulkar in 1998

Most 50+ scores – 16 by Sachin Tendulkar in 1998

Most 50+ without a 100 – 15 by Misbah-ul-Haq in 2013

Most runs without a 100 – 1,373 by Misbah-ul-Haq in 2013

Most runs without a 50+ score – 471 by Tillakaratne Dilshan in 2004

Most 125+ scores – Five by Sachin Tendulkar in 1998

Highest average – 79.11 by Ricky Ponting in 2007 (Min. of 1000 runs in a year)

Lowest average – 30.63 by Sachin Tendulkar in 1997 (Min. of 1000 runs in a year)

Most balls faced – 2,343 by Rahul Dravid in 1999

Highest strike rate – 113.59 by Sanath Jayasuriya in 1997 (Min. of 1000 runs in a year)

Lowest strike rate – 55.01 by Chris Broad in 1987 (Min. of 1000 runs in a year)

Most not out innings – 15 by Lance Klusener in 1999

Most ducks – Eight by Herschelle Gibbs in 2002

Most fours – 192 by Sachin Tendulkar in 2007

Most sixes – 48 by Shahid Afridi in 2002

Most fours without a six – 141 by Gary Kirsten in 2000

Most sixes without a four – Four by Natsai M’shangwe in 2013

Most Man of the Match awards – 12 by Sachin Tendulkar in 1998

Most Man of the Series awards – Four by Sachin Tendulkar in 1998

(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)