Virat Kohli & Co. are enjoying a great time in the neighboring country Sri Lanka as they humiliated the hosts in the Test series by enforcing a 3-0 whitewash. The domination did not stop there as they pulled off a completely one-sided victory in first of the 5 ODIs at Dambulla.
Where Shikhar Dhawan was the chief architect of the win with a stunning knock of 132 off just 90 balls, the skipper Virat Kohli also played a supporting hand of 82 off 70 balls. The scintillating innings at Dambulla has brought him closer to adding yet another feather in his cap.
Kohli is now just 45 runs shy of becoming the leading run-getter in this calendar year. South Africa’s Faf du Plessis is currently holding the pole position followed by Englishman Joe Root who is 16 runs ahead of Kohli. The kind of form that the Indian right-hander has shown recently, it shouldn’t take too long for him to occupy the top spot.
Kohli’s numbers far better
Although du Plessis and Root are ahead of Kohli at the moment, they are far behind the Indian in terms of average. Faf has scored 814 runs in 16 matches so far at an average of 58.1 while Root has accounted for 785 runs in 14 matches at an average of 71.3.
Kohli’s average is far superior at the moment as he has amassed 769 runs in 14 matches at an astonishing average of 96.1. He has a great chance to add to his tally given he is set to play 4 more ODIs in Sri Lanka. Followed by that, India will play 11 more ODIs in the home season.
The No.1 ranked ODI batsman could well end up as the highest run-getter at the end of the year as well, as South Africa won’t play ODI cricket until October and England will now play an ODI series in September against Windies. Not only that, given the number of ODIs that Kohli can play this year, it’s almost certain that he will end up scoring more than 1000 ODI runs in 2017.
