Skipper Kohli goes past captain Lara’s record in WI

Port of Spain, Aug 12 (IANS) Skipper Virat Kohli broke many records with his 42nd century which he struck during the rain-affected second ODI against the West Indies which India won by 59 runs (DLS method) at the Queen's Park Oval in Trinidad and Tobago here.

His 120-run inning became the highest ODI innings by a captain in the West Indies. The 30-year-old went past Windies' great Brian Lara's 116 which he had scored against Sri Lanka at Barbados' Bridgetown in 2003.

Mahela Jayawardane comes third in the list with 115* which he scored against New Zealand in 2005 at Jamaica's Sabina Park.

On Sunday, Kohli played a majestic 120-run knock which consisted of 14 fours and a six, helping India post 279 which they defended successfully to take an unassailable 1-0 lead in the three-match rubber.

After the match, Kohli said it was the need of the hour for one of the top three to score a hundred and he got the opportunity to step up.

"It feels good to get a hundred when the team wanted me to get one. Shikhar and Rohit didn't get a big one. One of the top three has always got the big one. A senior man had to step up and today was my opportunity to step up. It was important to string in a lot of dot balls," Kohli said.

During the course of his innings, Kohli also went past former skipper Sourav Ganguly's tally of 11,363 runs in the list of leading run-getters in ODI cricket.

The 30-year-old has scored 11,406 runs at 59.91 in 238 matches and is currently at the eighth spot in the list topped by legendary Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar who compiled 18,426 runs in 463 matches.