Virat Kohli Centuries: Complete List in Tests, ODIs and T20Is
Few numbers in modern cricket carry the weight of Virat Kohli’s century count. Eighty-two international hundreds — thirty in Tests, fifty-one in One-Day Internationals and a single, unforgettable one in T20Is — place him second only to Sachin Tendulkar in the all-time list, and first in ODI history, where he broke a record once considered untouchable. What makes the tally even more remarkable is its spread: no other batter has reached thirty Test centuries and fifty ODI centuries, a combination that demands mastery of two disciplines that reward entirely different skills.
Kohli has now retired from Tests and T20Is, so those numbers are final. His ODI journey continues, which means the most historic column in his record still has room to grow. This guide breaks down every format, the landmark hundreds that shaped his career, and the records his centuries have set along the way.
His centuries by format at a glance
Before diving into the stories behind the milestones, the headline numbers give the clearest possible picture of the scale involved.
| Format | Centuries | Highest score | First hundred | Most recent hundred |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tests | 30 | 254* | 116 vs Australia, Adelaide, 2012 | 100* vs Australia, Perth, 2024 |
| ODIs | 51 | 183 | 107 vs Sri Lanka, Eden Gardens, 2009 | 100* vs Pakistan, Dubai, 2025 |
| T20Is | 1 | 122* | 122* vs Afghanistan, Dubai, 2022 | 122* vs Afghanistan, Dubai, 2022 |
Three details in these figures repay a second look. The lone T20I hundred, marked twice in the same row, underlines how rare three-figure knocks are in the shortest format even for the greatest chasers in history. The ODI column’s fifty-one remains the most centuries any batter has ever compiled in a single international format, surpassing Tendulkar’s forty-nine during the 2023 World Cup. And the Test column, bookended by hundreds against Australia twelve years apart, tells the story of a career that began as a raw teenager fighting for survival on bouncy Adelaide pitches and ended as the captain who conquered them.
The landmark hundreds every fan should know
Within those eighty-two knocks, a handful of innings stand apart for what they meant at the time. They chart the arc of his career from promising talent to the most complete batter of his generation.
- 107 vs Sri Lanka, Eden Gardens, 2009 — his maiden ODI century, scored as a二十-year-old stepping in for an injured Tendulkar, and the first proof that India had found its long-term middle-order successor.
- 116 vs Australia, Adelaide, 2012 — the only Indian batter to make a hundred in that tour’s four Tests, played during one of India’s darkest away seasons and widely seen as the moment he announced himself in whites.
- 183 vs Pakistan, Asia Cup, 2012 — his highest ODI score, chased down with ice-cold composure and still the hallmark of his reputation in pressure games against India’s fiercest rival.
- Three double centuries in 2016 — 211 against New Zealand, 235 against England and 200 against the West Indies made him the only batter after Bradman to hit three double hundreds in a single calendar year.
- 254 vs South Africa, Pune, 2019* — his highest Test score and the innings that carried him past seven double centuries, the most by any Indian batter in history.
- 136 vs Bangladesh, Eden Gardens, 2019* — the first century by an Indian in a day-night Test, played under lights with the pink ball and celebrated with a tribute to his late father.
- 122 vs Afghanistan, Asia Cup, 2022* — his only T20I hundred, ending a wait of more than 1,000 days without an international century and played, fittingly, with a renewed aggression that silenced his critics.
- 50th ODI century vs New Zealand, Wankhede, 2023 — scored in a World Cup semi-final in front of a roaring home crowd, breaking Tendulkar’s long-standing record of forty-nine hundreds in the format.
Each of these innings changed something: his standing, India’s fortunes, or the record books themselves. That is the rarest quality in a century collection — none of the milestones feel like padding.
How his ODI hundreds transformed the record books
The fifty-one ODI centuries deserve their own examination, because this is where Kohli did something cricket had never seen. Tendulkar needed 452 innings for his forty-nine hundreds; Kohli reached fifty in fewer than 280. Between 2016 and 2019 he produced the most relentless hundred-scoring stretch in the format’s history, often converting starts into big scores at a rate that made even the greatest batters of previous eras look conservative.
- Most centuries while chasing — a large share of his hundreds came in the second innings, built on a chaser’s temperament that turned enormous targets into ordinary ones.
- The fastest to every major run milestone — 8,000, 9,000, 10,000, 11,000, 12,000, 13,000 and 14,000 ODI runs all fell to him quicker than to anyone else.
- Consistency across home and away conditions — his hundreds are distributed across continents, with significant tallies in Australia, South Africa and England, where visiting batters traditionally struggled.
- A hundred in every ICC event — he has made centuries at the World Cup, Champions Trophy and T20 World Cup, completing the set that eludes many all-time greats.
Together, these achievements explain why the ODI column is the one that defines him. It is not simply the volume but the reliability: for a decade, an Indian scorecard without a Kohli fifty was the anomaly, not the rule.
The Test centuries that built his legacy
Test cricket was where Kohli’s reputation took its sharpest knocks and earned its deepest respect. After a disastrous first England tour in 2014, when a technical flaw against the moving ball left him scoreless across ten innings, he rebuilt his game and returned years later to dominate the same attack. His thirty Test hundreds include hundreds in Australia, South Africa, England and New Zealand — venues where India’s batting had historically withered.
The twin peaks of his red-ball career are the 2016 home season, when spin-friendly pitches could not contain his hunger for big scores, and the 2018-2019 stretch, when he batted like the world’s best in conditions made for bowlers. His final Test hundred, an unbeaten hundred at Perth in late 2024, came after the critics had written his Test career off once more — a fitting last word from a batter who spent his entire career answering doubts with runs.
The single T20I hundred, and why there was only one
One hundred in more than a hundred T20I innings looks like a gap in the resume until you understand the role he played. For most of his T20I career, Kohli batted at number three as the anchor of a PowerScore machine, holding the innings together while openers and finishers swung around him. His game in this format was built on twos, gaps and running between the wickets — ruthlessly effective, structurally allergic to the boundary-hunting that produces centuries.
When the hundred finally came, at the 2022 Asia Cup in Dubai, it carried extra meaning. He had endured the longest barren stretch of his career, stepped away from the T20I captaincy, and returned with a rebuilt technique and a freer mind. The unbeaten 122 that followed, laced with elegant strokes rather than brute force, ended the drought and stood as his last, most personal statement in the format. He retired from T20Is after lifting the 2024 T20 World Cup, closing the chapter with the Player of the Match award in the final.
What his century record says about the modern game
Kohli’s tally is more than a personal milestone; it marks a shift in how cricket is played. Previous century-machines like Tendulkar and Ponting built their records in an era of longer series and slower scoring. Kohli accumulated his across a calendar jammed with cricket in three formats, against attacks armed with video analysis, data models and plans designed specifically to contain him. The fact that fifty-one of his hundreds came in an era where averages across the sport declined makes the ODI record, in particular, a generational outlier rather than a product of friendly conditions.
There is also the matter of intent. Kohli treated every hundred as a promise to finish the job, which is why his centuries converted to wins at a rate few batters in history can match. Fans remember not just the number on the scoreboard but the chase that followed, the celebration that erupted, and the sense that the team’s fate rested safely in his hands.
The records still within reach
With Tests and T20Is behind him, the ODI format holds the only numbers still moving, and two of them sit tantalisingly close.
- The 100-century horizon — eighty-two international hundreds leave him eighteen short of Tendulkar’s famous hundred, a target that would require several more ODI seasons at his recent scoring rate.
- More than fifty ODI hundreds — already the record holder, every additional century he scores simply extends a mark that may never be seriously threatened.
Whether he adds to these numbers or not, the career is already complete in every way that matters. Thirty Test hundreds across the hardest conditions the sport offers, fifty-one in a format he ruled for a decade, and one T20I century that arrived exactly when it was needed most. The arithmetic is impressive; the story behind it is what keeps fans counting.
