The One-Day Converters: de Kock, Kohli and the Art of Not Stopping
Quinton de Kock turned 42.6 per cent of his fifty-plus scores into hundreds in our one-day records. Virat Kohli made 54 hundreds, more than anyone, at almost the same rate.
A fifty in a fifty-over innings is a job half done. There are usually overs left, the field is spread, and the bowling is at its weakest. Converting ought to be easier than in Test cricket. It mostly is, and the players who do it best are worth looking at.
The list
| Batter | Hundreds | Fifties | Conversion | |---|---|---|---| | Q de Kock | 23 | 31 | 42.6% | | V Kohli | 54 | 77 | 41.2% | | HM Amla | 26 | 38 | 40.6% | | DA Warner | 21 | 32 | 39.6% | | SD Hope | 18 | 30 | 37.5% | | Babar Azam | 20 | 34 | 37.0% | | JJ Roy | 12 | 21 | 36.4% | | AJ Finch | 16 | 29 | 35.6% |
The Kohli number
De Kock leads on rate, but the entry that stops you is the second row. Kohli has 54 one-day hundreds in our records from 299 innings, which is more than twice as many as everyone else on this list bar Amla, and he has done it while converting at 41.2 per cent. Doing it once at that rate is a career. Doing it 54 times is something else.
Rate alone can flatter a player with a short sample, which is why the volume matters. A batter with 10 hundreds and 14 fifties would top this table on percentage and would not belong on it.
Openers everywhere
Six of the eight opened or batted at three for most of their careers. That is the structural advantage of the position in this format: you face the most balls, the field is up, and if you survive the new ball you can bat through. A middle-order player who reaches fifty in the fortieth over often has no overs left to convert in, however well he is playing.
Coverage
Our one-day records begin in 2005, so anyone who started earlier is cut off at that date and these are totals in our data rather than full career records. Afghanistan men's matches are absent from the public archive these records are built on.