Recently Virat Kohli has been in a rich vein of form, scoring 3 one day international centuries in his last four innings and upping his overall average to over 50 with a monumental 183 his most recent effort. He is the quickest to score 10 centuries according to this page (Edit: others have since surpassed this record). The following graphs show the rate at which top ODI century-makers have scored centuries. The first shows the top nine century-makers, while the second graph shows nine who have scored 9-13 centuries in not so many innings. A * next to the player’s name indicates a potential for him to add to his tally.
New plot below (click to interact – updated 28 Oct 2018):
For players who have scored 10 or more ODI centuries, here is a list of those who have scored them with fewest innings/century (updated Oct 21 2023).
Babar Azam* | 5.68 |
Kohli* | 5.69 |
Amla | 6.59 |
Warner* | 7.24 |
Hope* | 7.53 |
de Kock* | 7.79 |
Fakhar Zaman* | 7.80 |
Sharma* | 7.97 |
Finch | 8.35 |
Bairstow* | 8.36 |
MacLeod* | 8.60 |
de Villiers | 8.72 |
Roy* | 9.17 |
Tendulkar | 9.22 |
Root* | 9.63 |
Dhawan* | 9.65 |
Trescothick | 10.17 |
R Taylor | 10.48 |
Stirling* | 10.71 |
Guptill* | 10.83 |
Smith* | 11.00 |
du Plessis | 11.33 |
Gibbs | 11.43 |
Greenidge | 11.55 |
Gayle | 11.76 |
Williamson* | 11.85 |
Ponting | 12.17 |
Saeed Anwar | 12.2 |
We see that current players have a good lead over the rest of the field at this point. One interesting aspect of the above graphs is how many players were fastest to various landmarks of the number of centuries. The following table attempts to capture this (updated Nov 16 2023 – also interactive plot linked at the bottom).
n | Fastest to n ODI centuries (innings required) | ||
1 | 17 players (1) | ||
2 | Mohammad Shahzad, Knight (3) | Ingram, Amiss (4) | Rahmanullah Gurbaz, W Young, Imam-ul-Haq, P Hughes, Nicol, Porterfield (5) |
3 | Imam-ul-Haq, J Malan, Ibrahim Zadran (8) | Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Pietersen, Amiss (9) | Mohammad Shahzad (11) |
4 | Imam-ul-Haq (9) | Ibrahim Zadran (13) | de Kock, D Malan (16) |
5 | de Kock, Imam-ul-Haq (19) | D Malan (21) | Conway (22) |
6 | D Malan (23) | Imam-ul-Haq (27) | Tharanga (29) |
7 | Babar Azam (33) | Imam-ul-Haq (36) | Amla (41) |
8 | Amla (43) | Babar Azam (44) | Imam-ul-Haq (47) |
9 | Imam-ul-Haq (48) | Amla (52) | de Kock (53) |
10 | de Kock (55) | Amla (57) | Fakhar Zaman (67) |
11 | Amla (64) | de Kock (65) | Babar Azam (71) |
12 | de Kock (74) | Babar Azam (75) | Amla (81) |
13 | Babar Azam (76) | Amla (83) | Kohli, de Kock (86) |
14 | Babar Azam (81) | Amla (84) | Warner (98) |
15 | Babar Azam (83) | Amla (86) | Hope (105) |
16 | Babar Azam (84) | Amla (94) | Kohli, Warner (110) |
17 | Babar Azam (85) | Amla (98) | Kohli (112) |
18 | Babar Azam (97) | Amla (102) | Warner (115) |
19 | Babar Azam (102) | Amla (104) | Kohli (124) |
20 | Amla (108) | Kohli (133) | Warner (142) |
21 | Amla (116) | Kohli (138) | Warner, de Kock (152) |
22 | Amla (126) | Kohli (143) | Warner (153) |
23 | Amla (132) | Kohli (157) | de Villiers (187) |
24 | Amla (142) | Kohli (161) | de Villiers (192) |
25 | Amla (151) | Kohli (162) | Sharma (206) |
26 | Amla (154) | Kohli (166) | Sharma (207) |
27 | Amla (167) | Kohli (169) | Sharma (208) |
28 | Kohli (181) | Sharma (213) | Tendulkar (259) |
29 | Kohli (185) | Sharma (217) | Tendulkar (265) |
30 | Kohli (186) | Sharma (234) | Tendulkar (267) |
31 | Kohli (192) | Sharma (245) | Tendulkar (271) |
32 | Kohli (194) | Tendulkar (283) | |
33 | Kohli (195) | Tendulkar (286) | |
34 | Kohli (197) | Tendulkar (298) | |
35 | Kohli (200) | Tendulkar (307) | |
36 | Kohli (204) | Tendulkar (311) | |
37 | Kohli (205) | Tendulkar (321) | |
38 | Kohli (206) | Tendulkar (337) | |
39 | Kohli (210) | Tendulkar (350) | |
40 | Kohli (216) | Tendulkar (355) | |
41 | Kohli (217) | Tendulkar (369) | |
42 | Kohli (229) | Tendulkar (406) | |
43 | Kohli (230) | Tendulkar (415) | |
44 | Kohli (256) | Tendulkar (418) | |
45 | Kohli (257) | Tendulkar (424) | |
46 | Kohli (259) | Tendulkar (431) | |
47 | Kohli (267) | Tendulkar (435) | |
48 | Kohil (273) | Tendulkar (438) | |
49 | Kohil (277) | Tendulkar (451) | |
50 | Kohil (279) |
There are a few Gs involved: Greenidge, Ganguly, Gibbs, Gayle (edit: none of them left now)! Here are some notable spurts of century scoring:
- Zaheer Abbas scored 4 centuries in 6 innings and 5 in 11. (Edit: Sangakkara has since surpassed this with 4 centuries in 4 innings and 5 in 7.)
- A B de Villiers scored 6 centuries in 13 innings and 10 in 34. He has once scored three in a row and five other times scored two in a row!
- Warner scored 6 centuries in 11 innings and 7 in 15.
- Tendulkar scored 7 centuries in 17 innings, 8 in 20, 9 in 26, 10 in 32
- Kohli scored 8 centuries in 15 innings, 11 in 26, and 16 in 50!
- Babar Azam scored 17 centuries in 70 innings.
- Rohit Sharma scored 25 centuries in 99 innings.
Tendulkar’s stats are amazing. He took 76 innings to score his first century, then had 9 after 117 and entered the above list (before recent updates) during an amazing 12 hundreds in 45 innings period. Since then he only had one gap of more than 16 innings between centuries (37 innings from his 41st to 42nd century). Nobody else (until the mid 2010s) had such consistency of century-scoring over a long period.
NEW: You can see more than the top three for each row by viewing this interactive visualisation (example below, data from https://data.world/cclayford/cricinfo-statsguru-data – missing players from Canada, East Africa, Hong Kong, Nepal, Oman, Papua New Guinea, UAE, USA).
I have been on google trying every possible keyword to find the fastest to 10…20… centuries. And I found this. This is more than i had imagined for man, I somehow feel this page was dedicated to me, This is amazing work. Thanks a ton.
Comment by vighnesh reddy — November 27, 2013 @ 5:12 pm |
Thanks for the kind words!
Comment by ckrao — December 2, 2013 @ 8:09 pm |
Hey good stuff!
Am curious to know how you managed to extract such data as fastest to 14 ODI innings,etc. I tried playing around with Statsguru but couldn’t find the right filtering. Similarly, it would be cool to see how all the top players fared after 146 games,etc. How to do that?
Thanks!!
Comment by Craig M — November 28, 2013 @ 2:18 am |
Good question! As far as I know it’s not that straightforward with Statsguru – what I suggest is to write down a list of the suspect players (e.g. Fastest to 5000 ODI runs), then note down the 5 or 6-digit code corresponding to a player by hovering your mouse over the name (e.g. Viv Richards is 52812). Then use Statsguru’s “cumulative average” feature to find how they fared after the relevant number of innings. For example, Richards after 146 innings had 6186 runs @ 49.88 with 11 centuries – http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/player/52812.html?class=2;template=results;type=batting;view=cumulative. Simply replace substitute 52812 with other codes to get other players of your choice… I then aggregated the results via a spreadsheet. Hope this helps!
Comment by ckrao — December 2, 2013 @ 8:19 pm |
Amazing work !!! Can u try to add the innings per century table also ..
Comment by Phaneendra Kumar — January 19, 2014 @ 11:29 am |
Great work…and also updated very quickly.But,you also need to update the innings per century table…it’s not accurate anymore
Comment by Manoj — January 19, 2014 @ 1:29 pm |
Thanks, the table has now been updated.
Comment by ckrao — January 26, 2014 @ 8:37 am |
It’s Really a great job done. Let me tell you I always refer this page as soon as Amla or Kohli score century and I find updated. really good work. Also I suggest to do the same for test too, if it’s not time consuming.
Comment by Iqbal Parker — November 22, 2014 @ 12:05 pm |
Thanks for the kind words. Good idea about doing the same for tests, I have now created a similar table at https://ckrao.wordpress.com/2014/11/23/fastest-to-n-test-centuries-for-n-sufficiently-large/ .
Comment by ckrao — November 23, 2014 @ 12:09 am |
[…] blog entry about fewest innings to n ODI centuries has encountered much traffic in recent times due to the consistent century-scoring feats of Amla, […]
Pingback by Fastest to n test centuries for n sufficiently large | Chaitanya's Random Pages — January 31, 2015 @ 12:09 am |
Hashim Amla is on the way to break records after records within showing any attitude. The best part of this person is that he is very simple and has nil attitude, that is why he is favorite to number of Indians too.
Comment by NAYAZ — March 3, 2015 @ 12:06 pm |
Shikhar dhawan 8 centuries in 60 innings but still not featured in this list
Comment by Aki nayak — August 28, 2015 @ 6:42 pm |
Thanks for the correction, he’s in the list now.
Comment by ckrao — August 29, 2015 @ 12:09 am |
Q De kock is about to bring you more work in updating the table.. second fastest to 9 centuries.. phew !!
Comment by KP — February 4, 2016 @ 5:19 am |
Thanks, now updated!
Comment by ckrao — February 4, 2016 @ 9:54 am |
keep an Eye out for decock
expect him to break some records
Comment by naveen — February 4, 2016 @ 6:54 am |
Indeed I shall. 🙂
Comment by ckrao — February 4, 2016 @ 9:54 am |
D Kock fastest to 10
Comment by Amjad — February 9, 2016 @ 7:30 pm |
Both De Kock and Amla mad centuries today, so move over Kholi
http://www.espncricinfo.com/south-africa-v-england-2015-16/engine/match/800473.html
Comment by moedk — February 9, 2016 @ 10:13 pm |
amla fastest to 22 odi centuries, that too from 126 innings,, previous Kohli from 146. whats most amazing the way indian media and live broadcasters celebrated that milestone and the way supersports didn’t even notice Amla’s record breaking with less than 20 innings
Comment by deepak — February 10, 2016 @ 7:16 am |
These table and graph are really good for Cricket fan and interesting to see. I believe, before D Kock, Virat, Villier and Amla started playing their international match, Sachin should be on top (may be sometimes Ganguly/Anwar/Ponting- not sure). Due to T20 match started from 2006, all these 4 top batsman started scoring 100 at a faster rate and frequently and also nowadays, bowlers are not that much good compared to year 1990-2005 (Akram, Waqar, Ambrose, McGrath, Vaas, Pollock, A Donald, S Warne, Murali, S Bond, Brett Lee, S Akhtar). Sachin took 76 innings to score his first hundred against Australia (at the age of 21) otherwise he could be part of the top 3 from 8 to 22 centuries. Reason may be he was so young when he started his career and bated at 4/5/6 position at his initial career (16-20 age). Also have faced all those good bowlers during 1990-2005. He got dismissal 18 times at 90-99 runs. It would be great if he would manage at least 9 centuries from this 18 times (then he would be at 58 ODI centuries).
D Kock is just 23+ years and he can go way long along with Kohli for more centuries. May be 5-6 more years for AB and Amla. Lets see if they can surpass Sachin 49 centuries in their career at any number of innings.
Please keep updating this whenever these top 4 players score a century. I just found out same link for test as well. Thanks and well done 🙂 cheers !!
Comment by kishan singh — June 16, 2016 @ 3:00 pm |
You’re most welcome! By the way here is a past look at the lists from late 2013:
https://web.archive.org/web/20131014200323/https://ckrao.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/fastest-to-n-odi-centuries-for-n-sufficiently-large
Comment by ckrao — June 19, 2016 @ 5:25 am |
time to update the list. Amla also took Kohli’s place at 23rd century.
Comment by umer — June 17, 2016 @ 12:10 pm |
Done, thanks for informing me!
Comment by ckrao — June 19, 2016 @ 5:26 am |
Update de kock century
Comment by Amjad — September 30, 2016 @ 5:21 pm |
Time to update. Kohli hits 26th centuty.
Comment by Ricard — October 24, 2016 @ 3:54 am |
Hello Good statistics but its more healthy if your stats are start with 1st odi century.
Comment by Dhaval — January 23, 2017 @ 7:29 am |
Fair enough, I have now taken it back to n=3. I believe 13 players to date have scored centuries in their first ODI innings.
Comment by ckrao — January 25, 2017 @ 7:33 am |
wow thank for the implementation n=1 also useful ..warner now 13th fastest century by 3 rd person
Comment by Dhaval — January 26, 2017 @ 9:22 am
You have not update list properly babar Azam took 23 inning to reach 4th odi hundred but as per your stats its shows Finch & Dhawan.
could you please rectify..
Comment by Dhaval — January 31, 2017 @ 5:38 am
Thanks, corrected now.
Comment by ckrao — January 31, 2017 @ 7:35 am
can i get n=1 stats please send me link..
Comment by Dhaval — February 1, 2017 @ 5:01 am |
Shahid Afridi plus the players listed at the top here: http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/284184.html
Comment by ckrao — February 2, 2017 @ 9:45 am |
Can you please make changes in your existing table where n=1 , n=2 adding the same as sahid afridi name is not there..?
secondly its good to see on front page the whole player list.
n Fastest to n ODI centuries (innings required)
3 Pietersen, Amiss (9) Mohammad Shahzad (11) de Kock (15)
4 de Kock (16) Amiss (18) Babar Azam (23)
5 de Kock (19) Tharanga, Dhawan (28) Amla (30)
6 Tharanga (29) Amla (34) de Kock (35)
7 Amla (41) Zaheer Abbas (42) de Kock (50)
8 Amla (43) de Kock (52) Dhawan (57)
9 Amla (52) de Kock (53) Dhawan (72)
10 de Kock (55) Amla (57) Kohli (80)
11 Amla (64) de Kock (65) Kohli (82)
12 Amla (81) Kohli (83) Warner (90)
13 Amla (83) Kohli (86) Warner (91)
14 Amla (84) Kohli (103) de Villiers (131)
15 Amla (86) Kohli (106) Saeed Anwar (143)
16 Amla (94) Kohli (110) Ganguly (151)
17 Amla (98) Kohli (112) de Villiers (156)
18 Amla (102) Kohli (119) de Villiers (159)
19 Amla (104) Kohli (124) de Villiers (171)
20 Amla (108) Kohli (133) de Villiers (175)
21 Amla (116) Kohli (138) de Villiers (183)
22 Amla (126) Kohli (143) de Villiers (186)
23 Amla (132) Kohli (157) de Villiers (187)
24 Kohli (161) de Villiers (192) Tendulkar (219)
25 Kohli (162) Tendulkar (234) Ponting (279)
26 Kohli (166) Tendulkar (247) Ponting (286)
27 Kohli (169) Tendulkar (254) Ponting (308)
28 Tendulkar (259) Ponting (314) Jayasuriya (416)
29-30 Tendulkar Ponting
31-49 Tendulkar
Comment by Dhaval — February 3, 2017 @ 5:06 am
report not yet get updated..?
Comment by dhaval — June 5, 2017 @ 5:05 am
De kock & amla get their hundred today. please update the same..
Comment by Dhaval — October 15, 2017 @ 2:33 pm
Thanks, now updated.
Comment by ckrao — October 17, 2017 @ 10:05 am
Awsome Work .. Was looking for the exact info. Thanks a ton.
Comment by Syed Saddam — February 10, 2017 @ 10:42 pm |
Time to update. Amla now went to odi 100 number 25 in 151 innings
Comment by Werner — June 4, 2017 @ 6:04 am |
Thanks, now updated.
Comment by ckrao — June 5, 2017 @ 7:57 am |
Hi… Thanks for this stat… Can you able to help me by another way ?!… How many times Ganguly hold the record of n fastest n centuries ??… Plz help
Comment by Tamal Das — September 21, 2017 @ 5:08 am |
Ganguly earlier had the record of fastest to 16, 17 and 18 ODI centuries. See https://web.archive.org/web/20131016130302/https://ckrao.wordpress.com:80/2012/03/25/fastest-to-n-odi-centuries-for-n-sufficiently-large/ for an earlier version of this post.
Comment by ckrao — September 26, 2017 @ 11:35 am |
Babar Azam 6 Centuries in 32 innings. 2nd fastest.
Comment by Indian — October 13, 2017 @ 2:37 pm |
Thanks, now updated.
Comment by ckrao — October 13, 2017 @ 9:46 pm |
Babar Azam 7 centuries in 33 innings. Fastest to 7 centuries.
Comment by Indian — October 16, 2017 @ 2:29 pm
Hashim Amla 26th 100, 154 innings. Quinton de Kock 13th 100, 86 innings
Comment by Werner — October 15, 2017 @ 10:55 pm |
Thanks, list now updated.
Comment by ckrao — October 19, 2017 @ 8:01 am |
25. Babar Azam 7th 100 , 33 innings.
Comment by Shahid — October 16, 2017 @ 2:42 pm |
Thanks, now updated.
Comment by ckrao — October 19, 2017 @ 7:59 am |
When can we expect fresh list….?????
Comment by Dhaval Topiwala — October 17, 2017 @ 5:58 am |
Now. 🙂
Comment by ckrao — October 19, 2017 @ 7:59 am |
Virat Kohli
31 ODI CENTURIES
192 Innings
Comment by Indian — October 22, 2017 @ 11:30 am |
Thank you, many updates in recent times!
Comment by ckrao — October 22, 2017 @ 8:14 pm |
Kohli 32 centuries in 194: 194/32=6.06 innings per century
Comment by RD — October 29, 2017 @ 1:14 pm |
Thanks, I have also now updated the figures for Sharma, Dhawan, Taylor and Guptill.
Comment by ckrao — October 30, 2017 @ 8:57 am |
Plz imam ul haq. As early as possible.
Fastest 3rd and 4th century as I think.
Comment by Abdullah faseeh — July 22, 2018 @ 2:12 pm |
Thanks, now updated.
Comment by ckrao — July 23, 2018 @ 10:08 am |
Plz edit
Imam both centuries could not be in 1 match. 4th century is on 9th match. Plz edit again
Comment by Faseeh — July 28, 2018 @ 12:59 pm
Oops, thanks.
Comment by ckrao — July 29, 2018 @ 6:54 am
update fastest to 3 and 4 odi hundreds … its imam ul haq in 8 and 9 innings respectively…
Comment by Assignments — July 22, 2018 @ 3:32 pm |
Plz! add Imam ul haq as 3rd and 4th Fastest Centurion! as in 8 and 9 ODIs respectively. if I’m wrong reply me as early as possible! thanks for your great work which is shown above
Comment by Faseeh — July 22, 2018 @ 4:59 pm |
Imam Ul Haq had scored his 3rd & 4th century in his 8th & 9th innings respectively then why his name is not included in this list?
Comment by Zirgham Ali — July 23, 2018 @ 5:16 am |
Guys thanks to create this .to know who is fastest centuries in the man in world and inn to get a centuries.one more thing i want to you create list of fastest centuries upto 50 names
not upto 3.well very thanks for this
Comment by Ajay singh — November 8, 2018 @ 5:26 pm |
It is likely to possible Amla will break 8000 fast achieve run, after ward very difficult to manage as Virat made in present time.
Comment by Pankaj Jha — January 22, 2019 @ 9:40 pm |
Hashim amla fastest 27 odi centuries in 167 inn
Comment by Vijay Singh — January 23, 2019 @ 6:18 am |
Thanks, now updated.
Comment by ckrao — January 23, 2019 @ 8:15 pm |
yo bud, nice work. so much satisfying to read. do you have the same for test matches?
Comment by Bruno Fanx (@KhabriBiggstFan) — January 25, 2019 @ 2:35 pm |
Yes: https://ckrao.wordpress.com/2014/11/23/fastest-to-n-test-centuries-for-n-sufficiently-large/
Comment by ckrao — January 26, 2019 @ 9:26 am |
Hi buddy. imam hit a 5th century in South Africa… i don’t know in which no of matches, but it must in top 2. b’cuz he only played 20 ODI till now, 27 Jan’19.
Imam hit a ton in 3rd ODI and till now 4 odis are played in Pak-SA series.
Comment by Faseeh — January 28, 2019 @ 8:29 am |
Thanks, he is equal fastest to 5 ODI centures, I have now updated the table.
Comment by ckrao — January 28, 2019 @ 9:48 am |
Hi dear.. it’s great efforts.
Can you make same as in T20Is for 50s also.. I am sure, virat kohli once again will top there..
Comment by Love Kumar — May 23, 2019 @ 1:46 pm |
It’s possible, but the stats will later change rapidly as we now have 105 members with T20I status!
Comment by ckrao — June 11, 2019 @ 2:58 am |
Please make stats like this for T20I and Test as well it will be a lot helpful.
Comment by Nitin Sharma — June 22, 2019 @ 11:11 pm
Hi. Babar Azam scored his 11th ODI Century in his 71st Innings, and 73rd match, and thus became the third fastest in the world to reach 11 ODI Centuries breaking Kohli’s record vs Srilanka in 2nd ODI on the 30th September 2019 in Karachi. Can you please update that ?
Thank You
Comment by Abid — October 25, 2019 @ 4:10 am |
Thanks, I have now updated this.
Comment by ckrao — October 26, 2019 @ 3:18 am |
Hi, ROHIT SHARMA had 29 centuries. kindly check and update.
Comment by Faseeh — February 11, 2020 @ 10:41 pm |
Thanks, finally updated.
Comment by ckrao — April 16, 2020 @ 7:28 am |
I was afraid you’re gonna stop updating the stats here but you’ve come up with new graphs and analysis. Keep up the good work.
Comment by Aashish Lamichhane — March 10, 2022 @ 4:22 pm |
hey Bro, I think Baber hit 16th Century and Imam 9th. kindly check and update.
Comment by Faseeh — April 4, 2022 @ 5:25 am |
[…] ^ “Fastest to nth ODI centuries”. ckrao.wordpress.com. 25 March 2012. Retrieved 14 October 2017. […]
Pingback by Babar Azam Biography - Height, Age, Girlfriend, Children, Family... — September 11, 2022 @ 6:32 am |
Rohit Sharma scored 25 centuries in 99 innings. He had scored 4 centuries after 118 Innings, the he scored his 29th century in his 217th innings.
And Babar Azam scored 17 centuries within 70 innings, he had no centuries within 15 innings then scored 17th century in his 85th innings.
Add these both informarions please.
Comment by Mohammad Mustafizur Rahman — January 25, 2023 @ 2:03 am |
Sure, updated now.
Comment by ckrao — January 25, 2023 @ 5:39 am |
Thank you so much for updating, will give you more informations later if I see something is missed.
Comment by Mohammad Mustafizur Rahman — January 28, 2023 @ 3:00 am
AB De Villiers is the only batsman to score three consecutive centuries in ODI two times!!
Comment by Mohammad Mustafizur Rahman — January 28, 2023 @ 3:04 am
Good work
Comment by M Farooq — April 30, 2023 @ 3:33 am |
David warner 19 centuries in odis is 3rd fastest
Remove ab devilliers
Comment by Tahir — May 8, 2023 @ 11:37 am |
Rahmunalkah Gurbaz 2nd fatest 5th century in 23 odi innings..Afghanistan..
Comment by Bhat Altaf — August 27, 2023 @ 1:08 am |
Thanks, now updated.
Comment by ckrao — August 27, 2023 @ 8:12 am |
Ibrahim Zadran Scored his 4th ODI century in 13th Innings, 2nd fastest to do so. Update please.
Comment by Mohammad Mustafizur Rahman — September 5, 2023 @ 2:23 pm |
Thanks, now updated.
Comment by ckrao — September 6, 2023 @ 10:16 am |