Predicting Kohli's 50th ODI century: We foresee the exact moment the India skipper will overtake Sachin

While there are unpredictable variables - fitness, health, weather and the like - thanks to cricket’s wealth of statistical history, we can make a half-decent shot of providing an answer

It’s now only a matter of time.

Virat Kohli’s 34th one-day international century, made in India’s pounding of South Africa in Cape Town this week, took him to within 15 centuries of the great Sachin Tendulkar’s one-time seemingly invincible tally.

At 29, the Indian skipper has age on his side, and his form isn’t bad either. The Little Master must surely have resigned himself to being overtaken.

The question is: When?

While there are unpredictable variables - fitness, health, weather and the like - thanks to cricket’s wealth of statistical history, we can make a half-decent shot of providing an answer to that very question.

So here it is. The Cricketer has determined the exact moment Kohli will go past the great Sachin...

THE BACKGROUND

Though he is regularly referred to as a flat-track bully, cashing in on familiar pitches back home, the India skipper has made 20 of his 34 tons outside of his native country, but they have come less regularly than his home centuries.

Kohli averages a hundred every 6.01 innings abroad and one every 5.57 at home, for an overall average of 5.79.

THE SCHEDULE

India’s schedule features three more matches in the current series against South Africa, then a five-match campaign in England in June.

The Asia Cup - which this year takes place in India - follows in September, with between three to six matches for the hosts, while there is a five-match series against West Indies booked in for October, according to the Future Tours Program.

Kohli, therefore, has a maximum of 19 games left in the current calendar year - not accounting for the India skipper being rested or picking up an injury.

Beyond 2018, there has been mention of an ODI fixture list against Australia in February next year, though that has not been confirmed.

The revised FTP for the 2019-20 to 2022-23 seasons was confirmed before Christmas, detailing that India would play a total of 67 ODIs during that period, or between 16 and 17 per year.

There is also the World Cup to consider, which takes place in England next July.

THE FORM

It’s important (in this discussion, at least) to take into account how Kohli has accelerated towards Tendulkar’s record in recent months.

Having taken 83 innings to get his first dozen ODI centuries, he has acquired his most recent 12 in just 41 - better than double the pace.

Now, of course, he requires 16 more to overtake the Little Master.

If the time it took Kohli to rack up his past 16 hundreds is anything to go by (74 innings), we would be looking at a possible completion date sometime in late 2021 or early 2022.

But that would be ignoring the sudden upturn in his century strike rate since the backend of 2015.

From his debut in 2008 until October 2015, Kohli averaged a ton every 7.09 innings. Since smashing 138 against South Africa in Chennai, he’s going at one every 3.42.

At that rate - surely impossible to maintain over time - the Indian captain will be waving Tendulkar’s record goodbye as early as mid-2020.

To give our prediction a little more foundation, it might be prudent to check out Kohli’s hit rate against the sides he is coming up against in the coming months - he obviously enjoys playing South Africa in South Africa but what about England in England, the other Asian nations, West Indies and the Aussies?

^{When will Kohli go past Tendulkar's record?}

THE MATHS

Famously, Kohli has found the going tough against the swinging ball in England, and his record of one century in 10 innings, at an average of 32.33, goes to suggest there’s no guarantee of a Virat ton-up this summer.

On the sub-continent, however, he loves to tuck in. Against the sides involved in the Asian Cup, he’s hit a combined 11 hundreds in 50 innings (one every 4.55 trips to the wicket).

As for the Windies, two tons in 12 knocks at home belies the fact that Kohli has a host of unbeaten 50s which, in different circumstances, could easily have turned into three figures.

And on home soil Kohli takes the Australians for a hundred every 4.67 knocks.

Add them all together and do the maths, and we can come up with Kohli hitting three more centuries in the next year, according to his career trends.

There’s the catalyst of his fine recent form to throw into the mix, however.

Over the past two years he’s upped his century rate 100 per cent. It’d be foolish to expect that to continue at that pace, so for the sake of our increasingly spurious argument, we’ll give him a 50 per cent bump.

That would give him five more tons by the time Australia finish their tour of India in February next year.

From then on in, with no confirmed opponents, the guesswork gets a little more, well, guessy, as we only have averages and trends to rely on.

By February 2019, according to our obviously infallible estimates, Kohli will be averaging a ODI ton every 5.62 visits to the crease.

That would mean 62 more innings to beat Sachin… but Kohli’s second 100 knocks for India in ODIs have produced 50 per cent more tons that his first 100.

Should the same improvement continue through the third 100 appearances of his career, Kohli would have 31 more centuries by his 300th innings, which would take place sometime in 2023.

That seems a little over the top.

Anyway… a World Cup in England won’t help, and history suggests that even if India reached the final (a whopping 11 matches), he’d only manage the one century.

With all that in mind, and having pumped all the data into the big Cricketer calculator, we’ve come up with a definitive number of matches remaining until Kohli takes the lead. 68.

THE BIG DAY

India have three matches left in South Africa, and likely 15 more this year.

Should the Australians face a five-game series next winter, that would leave 45 to go until Virat’s big moment.

The Future Tours Program, remember, has India down for 17 a year from 2019-20 onwards, while there are a minimum of nine at the World Cup.

Nineteen to go, which caters for all of 2020.

And so, should Kohli stay fit and not be dropped, we can say with absolute certainty that the skipper will take Tendulkar’s mantle in the second game of India’s 2021 fixture list.

Nailed on.

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