India v New Zealand: Milestones in contention and trivia before the 5th ODI

The New Zealand ODI side has created a golden chance to transform a nightmarish tour into a historic one by winning the ODI series in India for the first time. Kiwis have exposed the over dependence of the Indian batting line up on Virat Kohli to give themselves an opportunity to go back home with happy faces after an utterly disappointing Test series.

Kohli failed in the two games and New Zealand didn’t allow the home side to cross the finish line after his dismissal whereas India won the other two games quite easily when Kohli was unbearable with the bat. This makes the Indian vice-captain a very important player for the final game. Luckily for India and unluckily for Kiwis, Vishakhapatnam is one of the happy hunting grounds for Virat Kohli and he along with his teammates has some milestones to look forward to in the final ODI.

Here is a look at some of these milestones with some interesting trivia:

• If India chases again like they have done throughout this series, another successful hundred from Virat Kohli will take him ahead of Sachin Tendulkar in terms of most ODI hundreds in successful run chases. Currently, he is leveled with the Master with 14 hundreds.

Also read- Vizag curator promises better wicket for final India v New Zealand ODI

• MS Dhoni is just 56 runs away from completing 4,000 ODI runs in India. He will become only the second batsman to attain the feat after Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar being the other who scored 6,976 runs on home soil.

• This will be MS Dhoni’s 199th game as ODI captain. He will become only the 3rd captain to lead the team in 200 ODIs (after Ricky Ponting and Stephen Fleming), most probably when India faces England in the 3-match ODI series.

• Virat Kohli’s ODI innings in Vishakhapatnam: 118 v Aus (2010), 117 v WI (2011), 99 v WI (2013). Not a good stat for the Kiwis.

• Martin Guptill needs 45 more runs to complete 5,000 ODI runs for New Zealand. He will be the quickest to reach the milestone and 5th overall after Stephen Fleming, Nathan Astle, Brendon Mccullum and Ross Taylor.

• India won the series decider of a home series against New Zealand in 1995 and 1999.

• This is the 4th time India will be playing a series decider in the last game of an ODI series (minimum 5 matches). Among the 3 times earlier, India has ended on the winning side only once (v Australia in 2013).