New Delhi: Following a masterful knock of 93 off 91 balls in the opening ODI against New Zealand at Vadodara, Virat Kohli returned to the top spot in ODI rankings after a long gap of four years. His 54th century in the third ODI at Indore would have cemented his place atop the batting charts, but Kiwi batter Daryl Mitchell had other ideas.
The Hamilton-born batting all-rounder dethroned the India superstar from the top and forced his reign to end in just seven days on the back of a scintillating performance in the three-match series.
Mitchell amassed a whopping 352 runs across the three-game series, including two centuries and a half-century, to claim the No.1 spot in the latest ODI rankings released by ICC on Wednesday.
Mitchell overshadowed Kohli in the final match on Sunday and engineered New Zealand’s first-ever ODI series win on Indian soil. While Kohli scored 124 off 108 deliveries, Mitchell smashed 137 from 131 balls and was named Player of the Match.
He was Player of the Match in the second ODI as well, scoring an unbeaten 131 off 117 balls to help the Black Caps level the series. In the series opener too, Mitchell was vistors’ top-scorer with 84 off 71.
Mitchell’s series aggregate of 352 runs is the most by a New Zealand batter in a three-match ODI series and the third-most of all time. He is only Pakistan’s Babar Azam (360 vs West Indies in 2016) and India’s Shubman Gill (360 vs NZ in 2023).
The Kiwi batter’s twin 130+ scores have catapulted him to 845 ranking points, well ahead of Kohli (795 points), who slips to No.2 on the list. Mitchell and Kohli are well clear of Ibrahim Zadran, Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill and Babar.
Mitchell climbs atop the ODI batting charts for the second time in his career, but unlike the previous occasion when his reign lasted just three days last November before he was overtaken by Rohit, he is set to spend a longer spell on the top thanks to a substantial rating points lead.
The middle-order batter has been a thorn in India’s flesh for a while now, and now sits only behind South African AB de Villiers (5) on the list of most ODI centuries in India with four tons.
