Kohli began the game against Pakistan 15 runs short of 14,000, and passed the milestone during India’s successful chase of 242, leading his team to victory with an unbeaten hundred, his 51st in the format. He reached his century by hitting the winning runs, a cover-driven boundary off part-time spinner Khushdil Shah.
“The difference that I saw, at least from his innings against Bangladesh to this… of course, the pitch was slightly better, but even when he sort of blocked against Bangladesh a couple of dot balls, he was sort of shadowing that again after that, but today we didn’t see any of that,” Anil Kumble said on ESPNcricinfo MatchDay. “He was just back to the way he bats and that says that the mind space was at ease and, of course, the challenge of playing Pakistan and the crowd, I’m sure sort of helps him lift his game and today we saw him in sublime form.”
He is currently averaging over 57 in the format, while Tendulkar (44.19) and Sangakkara (41.73) were averaging in the early 40s when they got to 14,000 runs. He is also the fastest to 14,000 runs in terms of balls faced, needing 14,984, much quicker than both Tendulkar and Sangakkara, who needed 16,292 and 17,789, respectively. Tendulkar and Sangakkara also marked their milestones with hundreds, although both came in defeats unlike with Kohli.
“Every time Virat goes there, the expectations are really high, not just for himself, but from the team’s perspective as well, that he’s going to get those runs for India, whether India bats first or chases down a target. And the fans’ expectations, you know, it’s massive,” Kumble said. “He’s a massive player, so obviously everything is sort of focused around Virat.
“When that happens consistently, it starts to get to you and then you’re trying too hard to get out of that and try to be your normal batting self, and today I thought we saw that in Virat. The way he constructed that hundred was… we’ve seen that many, many times in his 51 hundreds in ODI cricket.”
