India skipper Virat Kohli didnt have the best of outings in New Zealand as he amassed only 75 runs in the three-match ODI series and followed that up with another lean patch in the two-match Test series. But he would be eager to put an end to his drought and silence his critics as he is on the verge of reaching a major milestone in the forthcoming ODI series against South Africa.
Kohli, at the moment, is just 133 runs away from reaching the milestone of 12000 ODI runs. He will become the second Indian batsman, after Sachin Tendulkar, and also the sixth overall, to achieve this feat but he will be the fastest to do so as all other batsmen have taken more than 300 innings to reach this milestone. Kohli, on the other hand, will play only his 240th innings in the first ODI at Dharamsala and thus he will still beat them by a wide margin even if he doesn’t get the remaining runs in this match.
Facing the South African pace attack will once again be a challenge in this series for Kohli ans co. The likes of Lungi Ngidi and Anrich Nortje dominated a strong Australian batting lineup at home and are expected to do the same in the seam-friendly conditions at Dharamsala as well.
So, Kohli’s role with the bat becomes even more important as India’s chance of victory depend a lot on how he performs. Kohli has 11867 ODI runs to his name at the moment at an excellent average of 59.33. 8589 of those runs have come in winning causes and that too, at a massive average of 77.37.