Virat Kohli: Milestone Man

With a swivelling pull shot that screeched away to the midwicket fence in Thiruvananthapuram, Virat Kohli moved from a score of 57 to 61 during a chase against the West Indies on September 27. But the roaring crowd immediately alerted Kohli of a much larger milestone that he had just achieved: the boundary had taken the great Indian batsman beyond 15,000 One Day International (ODI) runs, only the second man to do so in the 50-over format after Sachin Tendulkar. In doing so, Kohli got there in 74 innings quicker than Tendulkar.

At 37 years of age—very much in the evening of his international career—and having already retired from Tests and T20 Internationals, there is only one number that Kohli is admittedly still playing international cricket for: a second ODI World Cup trophy when the quadrennial will be held in South Africa next year. But with Kohli being Kohli, larger numbers and rarefied landmarks continue to pepper his illustrious career. In Thiruvananthapuram, chase-master Kohli also went on to score a hundred, his 55th century in ODI cricket—six more than Tendulkar’s seemingly unbreachable collection of 49.

The unbeaten knock of 139 was his fourth hundred in his last 10 ODI innings, and fifth since 2025, making him the joint leading century-maker in the format since the conclusion of the previous World Cup in 2023. Which is a most remarkable feat, given his age and the fact that these days ODI cricket isn’t played nearly as often as it once was. Yet, however infrequently he takes the field in India’s blue, Kohli knocking over an incredible milestone remains a certainty.