Most ODI Nineties By Indian Players: Virat Kohli Becomes Joint Third

Virat Kohli finally ended his poor form with the bat against Australia as he scored a brilliant 92 in the ongoing second One-Day International at the Eden Gardens. While Kohli has scored heavily against all oppositions in the last one year or so, Australia was an exception.

Prior to the start of this year’s Test series against Steve Smith & Co., the India skipper had scored four double centuries on the trot but he performed miserably in the four-match series against the team from Down Under. The right-handed batsman had managed just 46 runs in 3 Tests.

He scored heavily in the tournaments and the series that followed but once again failed to get going against Australia in the series-opener at Chennai, getting out for a rare duck in One-Day Internationals. However, Kohli ended his barren run against the world champions with a well-compiled knock. He walked into bat when India lost their in-form opener Rohit Sharma cheaply and paved the way for a good total by adding 102 runs for the second wicket with Ajinkya Rahane before the latter was run-out for 55.

Rahane’s dismissal did not affect Kohli’s composure as he kept on playing his shots with utmost ease and raced to 92 before dragging a Nathan Coulter-Nile delivery back onto the stumps. As a result, he missed another well-deserved century by just 8 runs and also missed the opportunity to surpass former Australia batsman Ricky Ponting in the list of most ODI centuries. With 30 centuries, Kohli is currently level with Ponting and is only behind Sachin Tendulkar.

But the India batting star still managed to enter the record books for his knock though there are doubts whether he would like it. Kohli is now joint third in the list of most ODI nineties by an Indian batsmen. The list is led by the legendary Sachin Tendulkar who got out in nineties for a staggering 18 times.

Here is the list showing most nineties by Indian players in the 50-over format: