Cricket Corner: Kohli comes for more records but was his latest ton kosher?

In a nod to the longest form of the game - Test cricket - the article is broken into three sections to mirror the main intervals in a day’s play. Lunch - the main course, the biggest stories. Tea - something a little lighter, dessert if you will. And Stumps (the end of play) - something to ponder over a few drinks at the bar.

Lunch - King Kohli comes to dine

Since last week’s edition of Cricket Corner, there has been plenty more drama at the ICC World Cup. As we touched on last week, hosts India and New Zealand were both sitting pretty on three wins from three and since last Wednesday, they both added a fourth win before meeting each other over the weekend.

India took the honours on Sunday and aside from extending their perfect record, star batter Virat Kohli piled on further runs to his tournament tally with 95 against the Kiwis, after scoring 103 not out against Bangladesh a few days prior. That takes him up to 354 runs for the World Cup behind only South Africa's Quinton de Kock (407), who is also in outrageous form by the way. Rohit Sharma completes the top three scorers to date with 311.

Kohli’s century against Bangladesh was notable for a few reasons (more on that below). But first, to the stats! It was his 48th One Day International (ODI) ton, second only to Sachin Tendulkar (49), whose record he is closing is on fast and very nearly equalled against New Zealand. In terms of international hundreds across all formats, he’s also second only to Tendulkar (who has a whopping 100) with 78. Against Bangladesh, Kohli also became only the fourth player to pass 26,000 runs across all three formats and the fastest to do so. Later against New Zealand, he cracked the top four for total ODI runs of all time.

His record in run chases continues to astonish, too. Here’s more food for the stats freaks out there. In run chases in ODIs, Kohli has 39 centuries and 27 fifties. That’s 66 50+ scores, again second only to Tendulkar - let’s just call him the GOAT, shall we? Well, Kohli is the GOAT in his own respect. No other batter has scored more runs in successful run chases than Kohli (5,786), not even Tendulkar. And no batter has more centuries in such chases than Kohli (23). In fact, no other batter has more than 15. His average in successful ODI run cases is now 90.4. In a phrase, he's a mentality monster. This feels like his tournament but De Kock might have something to say about that, too.

Tea - Are all centuries sacred?

Kohli's latest ODI ton came about in rather curious circumstances. Requiring three runs to reach his century, India needed just two runs to win the match. Bangladesh’s bowler at the time, Nasum Ahmed, proceeded to bowl what looked like a wide delivery. However, umpire Richard Kettleborough decided not to call the wide, the penalty of which would have edged the match closer to its climax thus reducing Kohli's chances of notching his ton.

That wasn't the first small controversy. What had riled viewers initially was that Kohli was turning down singles to keep the strike, presumably so he could reach his century with a boundary while winning the match. And then the wide incident occurred. Aficionados pointed out that not calling the wide according to the letter of the law brought the integrity of the game into question. I can appreciate that point - it wasn’t a million miles wide but it was a wide 9.9 times out of 10.

However, a counterpoint cleverly raised on the ABC’s Grandstand Cricket podcast this week was that Kettleborough perhaps chose not to enforce the penalty as it didn’t suit the team that the law stands to benefit - the batting team. I like this view - perhaps there should be a bit of wiggle room with some laws. If the penalty is more beneficial to the infringing team than their opponent, why grant it?

The incident sparked a discussion in the cricket sphere which brought the dreaded ‘Spirit of Cricket’ back to the table like a ghost into Ebenezer Scrooge’s room. Hello darkness, my old friend. But shudders aside, there’s an interesting point to mull over here. What’s least in the spirit of the game - Kohli turning down singles and hogging the strike, an umpire not calling a wide so Kohli can bring up his ton or bowling a wide (possibly) on purpose to prevent him from reaching that milestone? Hmm...

I personally have no problem with the wide not being given. It's a different story if he had bowled the ball off the pitch or continued to bowl wides - a deliciously cynical scenario to imagine - and those subsequent wides still weren't called. Given the circumstances, I think we can allow Kohli to have his fun and his ton at that - he brought it up with a six, for the record. Let’s face it, he hasn’t scored 48 centuries in the format because umpires have been biased towards him. Or has he?

Stumps - What’s the deal with NRR?

With the World Cup around the halfway mark in the group stage, the semi-final places are taking shape. It looks like India, New Zealand and South Africa (now second after crushing Bangladesh yesterday) should go through but what about the last spot? England and Pakistan (both beaten by Afghanistan) are doing their best not to qualify but both should be involved in the race for fourth, as should heavyweights Australia.

There’s a very real possibility that two or more teams will be level on points in fourth place come the end of the nine rounds, however. In such a case, the spot will go to the team with the highest Net Run Rate (NRR). Wait, what’s that again? In short (really short), it’s a numerical value derived from the run rates in matches. It's kind of like a run rate for-and-against score but more nuanced.

The idea of it is that NRR separates teams who win big from those who win narrowly and it does that well in some cases but not in others. Due to the way it is calculated, it favours certain types of wins. For example, a team chasing 300 that reaches the total in 35 overs for the loss of 9 wickets will have a better NRR than one that achieves the total in 40 overs for the loss of no wickets. Did the former team win bigger? Not really. They scored slightly quicker but otherwise, you’d have to say it was a much narrower victory than the latter team's.

It does a job but it has these odd consequences - not all of which are bad. If you’re chasing, it incentivises you to score quicker in order to boost your NRR. That makes sense as it improves the product for viewers. However, NRR isn’t affected by the loss of wickets, which is one of the things we intuitively consider when we ask if a team batted well or not.

NRR could be the difference between making the semi-finals or not at this World Cup. As a result, teams will seek to play in a particular way as games draw to a close. In the best cases, this could mean more fun cricket in more matches but in the worst case, it could mean the wrong team makes the semis. It's the kind of thing that everyone forgets about between tournaments and then a World Cup comes around, NRR rears its oddly shaped head again, and we all think - don’t we have a beer tool yet? I guess not.

Head-to-head records feel the most obvious decider but they don’t always work when more than two teams are level on points. I like the idea of separating teams based on wickets taken - runs are pretty variable across conditions and, if you're chasing, you can only get as many as you need to win but the amount of wickets possible to take in each innings is always the same. Something to think about. At least if India win, it won’t matter who made the semi-finals anyway!