Sourav Ganguly, MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli are three skippers and players we are lucky to have. But believe it or not they have more in common with each other than you think.
Yes they all lead India, in fact Kohli still is in charge while Dhoni is in the twilight of his career and Ganguly retired 10 years ago. However, there is one other thing.
Reuters/AFP/BCCI
They have the common number 183 in their lives. All three of them have 183 as their highest ODI scores! Yes, it’s a huge coincidence, all three have the same highest score in the shorter format.
Ganguly was the first to get there when he slammed 183 vs Sri Lanka in the 1999 World Cup. It was a must-win game and his knock helped India defeat the then World Champions by 157 runs and avoid an early exit.
Dhoni hit 183 not out against the same opposition in 2005. It helped us chase down a score of 300 and that too with 6 wickets in hand. The victory ensured a 2-0 lead in a 7-match series which we would eventually clinch 6-1.
Kohli joined the club in 2012. His knock ensured we easily reached our target of 330 vs Pakistan in the Asia Cup. It kept up our hopes of entering the final.
Another thing was that these knocks came well before any of them had achieved superstar status. All of them were relatively new in international cricket and slowly beginning to make a name for themselves. These scores of 183 went a long way in doing that.
So that’s quite a story is it not? How the number 183 proved to be a benchmark for them.