The first match of the three-match ODI series between India and South Africa will be played at Dharamshala’s Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) Stadium on Thursday. Apart from the team’s perspective, the match is also an important one for Virat Kohli as he has been out of form lately. Moreover, if he scores substantially in the first of the three-match series, he will make history.
Notably, Kohli currently is just 133 runs away from reaching `12,000 ODI runs. If Virat manages to score that many runs in the Dharamshala ODI, he will register a new world record as he will become only the second Indian after Sachin Tendulkar to score 12,000 or more ODI runs.
Can break Sachin’s record
Virat will also sense an opportunity to break Sachin Tendulkar’s record of becoming the fastest to reach 12,000 ODI runs. While the Master Blaster took as many as 300 innings to reach the landmark, Virat has till date played only 239 innings.
After Sachin, the second name on the list is that of Ricky Ponting who took as many as 314 innings to reach 12,000 ODI runs. Ponting is closely followed by Kumar Sangakkara who scored his 12,000th run in his 336th innings.
Since Virat has played many fewer innings than the ones on the list, even if he takes his time to score these 133 runs, he is all set to break Tendulkar’s record.
However, fans would hope that he does that in the home series against South Africa and does that in the first ODI itself.