India cricketers Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer stand on the brink of major milestones in their ODI careers, with Kohli just one big innings away from another landmark.
The 37-year-old Kohli, who is in imperious form with the bat, is one half-ton away from a record-breaking knock ahead of India’s second ODI against New Zealand on Wednesday in Rajkot.
Kohli is tied with Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Rohit Sharma, and Ajinkya Rahane after hitting five consecutive fifty-plus innings in ODI cricket thus far. This run began in the final ODI against Australia in Sydney. He would become the first Indian batsman with six consecutive fifty-plus ODI scores with another half-century.
In ODIs, Kane Williamson, Shai Hope, Babar Azam, Paul Stirling, Ross Taylor, and Chris Gayle have all scored 50 runs or more six times in a row.
The two players with the most consecutive fifty-plus scores in ODIs are Imam-ul-Haq (seven consecutive fifty-plus scores) and Pakistan great Javed Miandad (nine consecutive fifty-plus scores).
Virat has amassed 469 runs at an average of 156.33 in his last five ODIs, including two hundreds and three fifties. Virat has seven consecutive fifty-plus innings in List-A cricket if his two performances for Delhi in the Vijay Hazare Trophy (VHT), where he hit 131 and 77, respectively, are taken into account. In these seven innings, Virat has scored 677 runs at an average of 135.4, including four fifties and three hundreds.
Indian middle-order batsman Shreyas Iyer is only 34 runs short from reaching 3,000 ODI runs.
In Sunday’s opening ODI in Vadodara, India defeated New Zealand thanks to Iyer’s crucial knock of 49 in 47 balls, which included four boundaries and a six. He also shared a 77-run partnership with Virat Kohli.
With five hundreds, 23 fifties, and a top score of 128 not out, Shreyas has amassed 2,966 runs at an average of 47.83 and a strike rate of over 99 in 74 ODIs and 68 innings.
If Iyer scores 3000 runs in Rajkot on Wednesday, he will go level with West Indies legend Viv Richards as the fourth-fastest batsman to reach the milestone in terms of innings taken. Additionally, he will overtake Shikhar Dhawan, who took 72 innings to attain the milestone, as the fastest Indian to do so.
