Indian captain Virat Kohli celebrates after scoring a century during the first ODI match against Zimbabwe at the Harare Sports Club, Zimbabwe, yesterday.
HARARE, Harare Province: India captain Virat Kohli became the fastest batsman in the history of the game to score 15 one-day international hundreds as India cruised to a six-wicket victory over Zimbabwe at Harare Sports Club yesterday.
Kohli’s 115 from just 108 deliveries helped the tourists chase down a target of 229 with 31 deliveries remaining to go 1-0 up in the five-match series, and also saw him eclipse Pakistan batsman Saeed Anwar’s record.
While Anwar required 143 one-day matches to score his first 15 centuries, yesterday’s match was Kohli’s 106th game. India’s greatest batsman, Sachin Tendulkar, scored his 15th one-day century in his 182nd match.
Kohli was aided by debutant Ambati Rayudu, who shared in a 159-run stand for the third wicket after openers Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma were dismissed relatively cheaply.
“It’s always good to kick off a tour with a win and personally I was happy with the way I played. The ball was moving around a bit early on and it was all about percentage cricket, rotating the strike and then playing your shots at the end,” Kohli, man of the match, said.
“Virat is playing the best cricket possible and I feel he’s the best player in the world in the one-day format right now, so it made it a lot easier for me to bat with him,” Rayudu said.
Kohli and Rayudu made serene progress throughout the afternoon as Zimbabwe failed to apply pressure with either tight bowling or slick fielding, until Kohli was caught on the long-off boundary off the bowling of Prosper Utseya as he looked to finish the match quickly.
Utseya then had Raina caught at cover two balls later, but Rayudu crunched a drive to the extra cover boundary three overs later to finish the job and end unbeaten on 63.
India’s victory was largely set up by their bowlers, who took advantage of some lateral movement up front to restrict Zimbabwe early on.
Openers Vusi Sibanda and Sikandar Raza opted for a patient approach in a 72-run opening stand, which was broken when Sibanda was trapped lbw by an Amit Mishra googly.
Raza increased the tempo as the innings wore on, but lost partners at regular intervals as Zimbabwe’s middle order struggled against India’s disciplined bowling.
“All three of their seamers bowled really well, but it wasn’t just them - the spinners came on and bogged us down with a lot of dot balls,” Raza said.
“Overall it was just really difficult to score.”. AGENCIES
