Virat Kohli piled up another ODI century against Sri Lanka in the third ODI. This was his 74th international century and 46th in ODI. Kohli shut all the critics with his back-to-back centuries in the past five months. He had a century drought since 2019, and his form dropped too but in the Asia Cup 2022, he could finally break the drought. Kohli scored an unbeaten 166 runs off 110 balls.
This score against Sri Lanka was his second-highest score with eight sixes and 13 boundaries. He also became one of the highest scorers of this format with a total of 12,754 runs. He also became the first batter to score 10 centuries against one team in One Day Internationals. Previously, Sachin Tendulkar had scored nine centuries in this format against Australia. Kohli has now four 150+ scores in the format.
In the 1st ODI in the same series, Kohli mustered his 45th ton and India did defeat Sri Lanka by 67 runs. In the first ODI, he smashed 113 off 87 deliveries. The hosts reached a total of 373-7 in the given 50 overs. In December 2022, he ended his ODI century drought and notched a hundred against Bangladesh in the third ODI in Chattogram.
With the ODI World Cup approaching, the entire cricket fraternity and the fans will be hoping for Kohli to score huge runs and his comeback time couldn’t have been better. Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar said “Keep doing great like this. Keep illuminating the name of India” after he piled up a ton in the second ODI against Sri Lanka.
While he was going through a lean patch, he revealed that the expectations and all the talk in the media made him cranky which was unfair to his friends and family. He also advised Suryakumar Yadav to be “prepared” for the bad days.
His recent ton against Sri Lanka was his 74th ton in international cricket and 46th in ODI. It will be interesting to see if can match Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 100 international centuries.
Read more: Top 5 cricketers with the fastest centuries in T20I history
