Virat Kohli smashed a brilliant century against Bangladesh in India’s 2023 World Cup match on Thursday.
Virat Kohli, India’s superstar batter, smashed his 48th ODI century against Bangladesh during the 2023 World Cup match. As India looked to be well on their way to winning the championship for the fourth time in a row, Kohli’s focus seemed to be shifting as he began to aim for the elusive three-figure milestone. After all, since coming to the crease in the game’s thirteenth over, Kohli has played his innings to almost perfect timing, as he has done throughout his career.
India needed only 19 runs to win, and Kohli needed 19 runs to reach 100 when he began his chase for the century. Throughout the last few overs of the game, Kohli denied singles on multiple occasions, and the non-striker KL Rahul was similarly supportive of the 34-year-old’s efforts. In order to accomplish his milestone, Kohli adopted an aggressive strategy that involved more boundary-finding and less jogging between the wickets.
However, without his flawless ability to turn one ball into two balls, no Kohli innings is really complete. Kohli surprised the audience with two fast twos during the penultimate over, demonstrating his amazing fitness and tenacity. The most spectacular way possible was the culmination of Kohli’s unwavering pursuit of a century. Kohli struck a breathtaking six off Nasum Ahmed with just two runs needed for the win and three for his century, giving India a decisive victory in Pune and taking him closer to the prestigious three-figure mark.
Naturally, the fans went wild as Kohli proved once more why he is considered one of the best ODI batsmen of all time. Kohli’s 48th century brought him one wicket shy of the record for most ODI hundreds held by Sachin Tendulkar (49). Ultimately, Kohli hit his 78th international century; with 100 centuries under his belt, Tendulkar continues to lead the pack in that category. However, this was not the Indian celebrity’s sole achievement. In his innings against Bangladesh, Kohli also surpassed Mahela Jayawardene to move into fourth place on the all-time list of international cricket runs scored. In this elite group, he now trails only Sachin Tendulkar (34,357 runs), Kumar Sangakkara (28,016 runs), and Ricky Ponting (27,483 runs).
But this wasn’t the night’s most important turning point. While he is still two centuries short of the coveted 50th ODI century, Kohli achieved another incredible milestone during his innings when he broke yet another record held by Tendulkar. He became the cricketer in international cricket to amass 26,000 runs the quickest. In his 567th international innings, or 34 innings shorter than the illustrious Tendulkar’s 601 innings, Kohli reached this milestone with an outstanding total of 26,026 runs and is still undefeated in international cricket.
For Kohli, the evening was far from done. Once again, Kohli was presented with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and he made the most of it by moving up to fourth place on the all-time list of ODI World Cup run scorers, passing both Brian Lara and Rohit Sharma. With this achievement, Kohli’s ODI World Cup lead now stands at just 2278 runs behind Tendulkar, 1743 runs behind Ponting, and 1531 runs behind Sangakkara.
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