Kohli Becomes Second-Highest International Run-Scorer, Passes Kumar Sangakkara in Elite List

For the first 20 meters of Kohli’s walk back to the pavilion after scoring a masterful half-century, a deep hush deafened the raucous Vadodara ground. The rest of the walk back was filled with exuberant chants of “Kohli…Kohli…Kohli.”

Virat Kohli may be the only cricketer whose 93 was seen rather as a tragic, missed century than a brilliant, match-winning knock. Social media began filling up with thousands of “heartbroken” posts of Virat Kohli’s wicket, shortly after his wicket on Sunday.

The 37-year-old has been on a tear in recent times in List A cricket, scoring five fifty-plus scores consecutively, converting two of them into centuries, while two more were unbeaten. Kohli, sitting at number two in the ODI batting rankings prior to Wednesday’s rankings update, remains the world’s most prolific one-day batsman to this day.

He continues to pass legends and cement himself as arguably the greatest white-ball cricketer ever, as he stands at a mammoth 28,068 international runs. His 624 innings to reach the mark is the fastest, 20 innings shy of his only companion at the top, Sachin Tendulkar.

Kohli’s run-chasing proficiency brought India to the cusp of a win on Sunday, before a hiccup in the middle-order delayed the inevitable until the penultimate over. In doing so, he secured his 45th player-of-the-match trophy, a count that he did not keep track of, as per his post-match interview in Gujarat.

Two more matches remain in the India-New Zealand ODI series before the five T20Is between the two countries in preparation for the T20 World Cup in February.