Virat Kohli emerges as Player of the Tournament for outstanding performances

Delhi: Virat Kohli, India’s star batsman, concluded the ICC World Cup 2023 as both the Player of the Tournament and the highest run-scorer. The 36-year-old wrapped up his ODI World Cup 2023 campaign by amassing an impressive total of 765 runs, securing the top spot in the run-scoring charts for this esteemed competition. His 765 runs in the tournament is the most ever scored by an individual batter at a men’s Cricket World Cup, surpassing the previous record set by Sachin Tendulkar, who hit 673 in the 2003 tournament.

Kohli finished with an average of 95.62 and a strike rate of 90.31 in the tournament, hitting three centuries along the way – against Bangladesh and South Africa in the league stage and then once more against New Zealand in the semi-finals.

Virat ended with the most fifty-plus scores in a single World Cup edition with nine half-centuries and passed through Tendulkar’s seven fifties in 2003 and Shakib al Hasan in 2019.

That third century took Kohli’s career tally to 50 One Day International hundreds, making him the leading century-maker in the history of the format.

Kohli broke Tendulkar’s long-standing record at the ‘Little Master’s’ home ground, the Wankhede Stadium, and said that it was the perfect moment.

On October 8, the batter began the tournament with a critical 85 in the team’s first match against Australia in Chennai. In the group stages, he scored centuries against Bangladesh (103) and South Africa (101*), as well as key performances against New Zealand (95) and Sri Lanka (85).Kohli performed admirably in the World Cup, serving as the pivot around which the entire batting unit revolved.