Virat Kohli on Sunday became the ninth Indian cricketer to make 250 appearances in One-Day Internationals (ODIs). He reached the milestone during the second ODI of the ongoing three-match series against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground. The 32-year-old, who made his ODI debut on August 18, 2008 against Sri Lanka, has also represented India in 86 Tests and 82 T20Is. Kohli has scored more than 21,000 international runs across formats till now.
Overall, Sachin Tendulkar holds the record for making most ODI appearances for India. Tendulkar played 463 ODIs in his stellar career in which he scored 18,426 runs with the help of 49 hundreds. Besides, he also played 200 Tests and 1 T20I scoring 15921 and 10 runs respectively.
The ‘Master Blaster’ is followed by MS Dhoni (347 ODIs), Rahul Dravid (340), Mohammad Azharuddin (334), Sourav Ganguly (308), Yuvraj Singh (301) and Anil Kumble (269) in the list of most ODI appearances by Indian players.
Overall, Tendulkar’s 463 ODI appearances are also the most by any cricketer in the history of the 50-over format. Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene played 448 ODIs and comes second in the list. Next to follow are Sanath Jayasuria (445), Kumar Sangakkara (404), Shahid Afridi (398), Inzamam-ul-haq (378) and Ricky Ponting (375).
Meanwhile, former India cricketer and now commentator Sanjay Manjrekar had a bad 2019. Firstly he got all the bad press when one of the star Indian cricketers Ravindra Jadeja was displeased with his ‘bits and pieces’ remark. Later, he had an on-air spat with Harsha Bhogle for which he still holds himself accountable. He was eventually dropped from BCCI’s commentary team later that year. Now back in the commentary box, Manjrekar candidly reveals it’s not the first time that has happened to him.
