ICC Champions Trophy 2025: Virat Kohli plays 300th ODI as India aim to continue winning run vs New Zealand | Cricket News

DUBAI: Playing in his 300th ODI, Virat Kohli, arguably the greatest player besides the legendary Sachin Tendulkar in this format, fresh off a scintillating hundred that saw him rediscover his form in the last match with against Pakistan, will look to make the occasion special when India play New Zealand in their final Group A match of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Sunday.
Coming into the Champions Trophy, Kohli was searching for runs, with just a sole century against Australia (100 not out) in the Perth Test in Nov last year, and a half-century (52) against England in the third ODI at Ahmedabad. The knives were out for the 36-year-old when he succumbed to leg-spinner Rishad Hossain for a lacklustre 22 against Bangladesh in India’s opening match of the tournament.
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However, the sight of Pakistan’s bowlers has brought the best out of Kohli, and last Sunday was no different, as the maestro stroked his record-extending 51st hundred to take India home in a 242-run chase with 45 balls still left in the bag.
Kohli is set to become only the 22nd batter overall, and the seventh Indian, to play 300 ODIs- a list led by Tendulkar with 463. During his century against Pakistan, the 51st of his ODI career, Kohli also crossed 14,000 ODI runs to join Tendulkar and Kumar Sangakkara as only the third batter to accomplish the feat.

“That (300) is a lot of ODI games and a lot of international games and he’s been… I mean words fall short to express how good a player he’s been and what a great servant of Indian cricket he’s been. Really happy to see that he got the hundred (in the) last game and he’s been batting really well. For a player of his calibre, it was about time that he scores that big century and a match-winning century,” India’s wicketkeeper-batter KL Rahul, who has spent an entire decade since his debut in the shadow of KohlI, told reporters in Dubai on Friday.
Kohli’s ultimate aim, of course, would be to touch or cross Tendulkar’s gigantic record of 100 international hundreds-the 111-ball 100 not out against Pakistan was his 82nd century in international cricket.
Going by the words of former India head coach Ravi Shastri and ex-India batting coach Sanjay Bangar — two people who know the Delhi man really well, Kohli is going to play for another three-four years, which means that he has a realistic chance of equalling or overtaking Tendulkar’s record-something which seemed unbelievable till a few years ago.
Meanwhile, playing their first match in a week, Team India will look to shake off the rust, as well as maintain their unbeaten run, which will enable them to top the pool when they square off against the dangerous-looking Black Caps.

Regardless of the outcome of this match, India will play their semifinal clash on March 4 here, while New Zealand will travel to Lahore to play in the second semi-final on March 5.
Fired by a clinical show by both their bowlers and batters, India, led astutely by captain Rohit Sharma, who has provided them with power-packed starts, have already qualified from Group A for the semi-finals with two wins in two matches, thriving on the slow pitch here.
It will be interesting to see if India rest Rohit, suffering from a minor hamstring issue, and give the in-form Shubman Gill, who cracked a scintillating ton against Bangladesh, a ODI captaincy debut.
Gill (top run-getter for India with 147 runs, on the back of 259 runs in three matches at an average of 86.33 in the preceding ODI series against England) and Iyer’s blazing form has contributed as much to India’s surge as Rohit and Kohli finding their touch again.
Having downed both Bangladesh and Pakistan by six wickets, India are brimming with confidence, with pacer Mohamed Shami, who took a fiver against Bangladesh, Kuldeep Yadav (three for 40 against Pakistan) spearheading their bowling charge.
With an eye on the semis clash, which is just a day later on Tuesday, India may actually rest both Shami and Kuldeep, and bring in left-arm seamer Arshdeep Singh and mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy.
Even though they enjoy an overall head-to-head record of 60 wins in 118 ODIs against them, India must thank their stars that they are meeting the Mitchell Santner-led Black Caps, who qualified for semi-finals with a 60-run win over Pakistan in the Champions Trophy’s opening clash at Karachi and then a five-wicket victory over Bangladesh in Rawalpindi on Monday, in a largely inconsequential match.
When it comes to the ICC events, New Zealand, who have beaten India in 50 ODIs, possess a knack of being India’s bogey team. It’s the one team that spooks India’s cricket fans the most.
Whether it was the World Test Championship final at Southampton in 2021, a T20 World Cup league match at Nagpur in 2016, a T20 World Cup league stage match at Dubai in 2021, or the WODI World Cup semifinals in Manchester in 2019, the Kiwis have spoiled India’s plans every time.
It was a jinx that was only broken when India outplayed the Black Caps by 70 runs in a high-scoring semifinal of the 2023 ODI World Cup at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
However, that result is also now a distant memory, considering that the Kiwis, powered by their spinners Santer took a match-winning haul of 13-157 at Pune-thrashed India 3-0 in the latter’s own den in what was a stunning achievement.
“We don’t like to put too much pressure on ourselves. Obviously coming off a great Test series win, it gives us a lot of confidence that we can (beat India), and we’ve got a really good record against India in ICC events. We like to take a game (at a time) and not let the moment get to us,” said New Zealand’s off-spinning allrounder Michael Bracewell, who took 4 for 26 in 10 overs against Bangladesh, on Friday.
Apart from the fact that they have the spin attack to test India in these conditions, the Kiwis will be boosted by the return of middle-order batsman Daryl Mitchell, who missed the last match against Bangladesh as he was unwell. Mitchell had scored a sublime 119-ball 134 against India in the 2023 World Cup semis.