A look at the records KL Rahul created with his century in the third ODI against New Zealand

KL Rahul has been in the form of his life in limited-overs cricket since the latter part of 2019. He has been maintaining that in India’s ongoing tour of New Zealand as well. He was the highest run-getter during the five-match T20I series which India won comprehensively. Although India were whitewashed in the ODI series that concluded on Tuesday with their loss in the third ODI, Rahul still went on to score a magnificent century while batting at number five. Not only that, he went on to create several records with this knock as well. So, let’s have a look at them.

• Rahul is now the third Indian player to score an ODI hundred while being a designated Wicket-Keeper for the side. MS Dhoni (9) and Rahul Dravid (4) are the only other players to do so.

• He is also only the fifth wicketkeeper-batsman to score an ODI hundred against New Zealand in New Zealand. Brad Haddin, Adam Gilchrist, Kumar Sangakkara and AB de Villiers are the other four.

• Rahul’s knock of 112 is also the third highest score by an Indian at No.5 away from home. Yuvraj Singh holds the record for both highest and second-highest score at this position. The southpaw scored 139 versus Australia at SCG in 2004 and 120 versus Zimbabwe in Harare in 2005.

• This hundred is also only the second century by an Indian wicket-keeper outside Asia. The first one came way back during 1999 World Cup when Rahul Dravid played a magnificent knock of 145 versus Sri Lanka.

• Rahul is also only the second Indian to score 200 or more runs while batting at number five in a bilateral ODI series outside Asia. Rohit Sharma was the first one to do so when he scored 257 runs at this position during the five-match ODI series in West Indies in 2011.

• All four of Rahul’s ODI hundreds have now come in different countries ( Zimbabwe, England, India and New Zealand). He is only the second Indian with this unique record. Yuvraj Singh is the other one who holds such a record. He scored his first Six ODI centuries in Bangladesh, Australia, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, India and Pakistan respectively.