The meteoric rise of birthday boy Virat Kohli, who turned 25 today, is commendable as the Delhi dasher has become the most devastating batsman in ODI cricket at the moment.

Virat Kohli also became the number one batsman in ODI cricket last Sunday after a superb batting show against Australia in the home series, in which he scored 344 runs.

Kohli had scores of 61 (in Pune), 100 not out (in Jaipur), 68 (in Mohali), 115 not out (in Nagpur) and 0 (in Bengaluru).

This performance gave Kohli a series aggregate of 344 runs at an average of 114.66, and a reward of 38 ratings points which helped him to jump three places to top of the ICC ranking table for ODI batsmen.

He has achieved the number-one spot for the first time in his career. Kohli has now become the third Indian batsman to hold the number-one batting rank in ODI cricket, after Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni.

Kohli, who is developing into a formidable Test batsman too, has stamped his authority in the shorter version of the game in a great fashion as he has scored 17 centuries at an average of over 52 and a strike-rate of over 88.

Kohli has been full of confidence and self belief since his U-19 days, but now he has raised his maturity to a very high level which was quite evident in the recently-concluded ODI series against Australia.

Kohli came close to scoring 1,000 ODI runs (995) in 2010 but hasn't missed that landmark in the next three years - 1,381 in 2011, 1,026 in 2012 and 1,033 in 2013 till date.

Kohli has also amassed 13 centuries during these three years, and also became the quickest to amass 17 tons, in 58 fewer innings than former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly.

Virat Facts

* Amongst the batsmen with 2,000 runs or more in successful ODI chases, Kohli's average of 86.53 is the second highest, next only to MS Dhoni's 101.28 (2,127 runs in 55 innings).

* His tally of eleven hundreds in successful chases is bettered only by Sachin Tendulkar (14) in ODIs.

* Since January 2009, Virat has managed 4,760 runs at an average of 53.48, including 17 hundreds and 25 fifties, in 113 matches. His aggregate and centuries are records by any batsman since January 2009.

Virat Kohli More Stills



Keywords: birthday boy, Virat Kohli,Delhi dasher, ODI cricket , ICC ranking , Sachin Tendulkar , MS Dhoni, Indian skipper, Sourav Ganguly,cricket news,sports news