Virat Kohli hit 74 off 51 balls in a rain-hit first ODI at Eden Park, Auckland, and went past Sachin Tendulkar’s ODI chase record. India won by five wickets and lead the five-match series 1-0.
Updated: 5 November 2026, 10:00 IST
Quick Read
- India beat New Zealand by 5 wickets in the 1st ODI at Eden Park, Auckland, on 4 November.
- Rain cut the match to 32 overs and set India a revised target of 143 under DLS.
- Kohli’s 74 off 51 took him to 8,741 ODI chase runs, past Tendulkar’s 8,720.
India have started the New Zealand tour with a win. They beat the hosts by five wickets in the first ODI at Eden Park, Auckland, on Wednesday, 4 November. Rain kept cutting into the game. In the end, India chased a small revised target with ease, and Virat Kohli walked off with a record. New Zealand batted first and were bowled out for 185 in 40.2 overs. Tim Seifert top-scored with 38. Blair Tickner made 34. India’s young fast bowlers did the damage. Arshdeep Singh took 4 for 70. Gurnoor Brar took 3 for 44. Anshul Kamboj took 2 for just 22 runs in his full 10 overs. Then rain hit twice during India’s chase. The officials cut the match to 32 overs. They used the DLS method to set a new target. DLS is a maths formula. It resets the target when rain eats up overs. India’s new target was 143 runs in 32 overs.
Kohli takes charge
India lost early wickets. That’s when Kohli took charge. He hit 74 runs off 51 balls. He struck 13 fours and one six. His strike rate was over 145. That means he scored at more than 145 runs per 100 balls. Fast, but still in control. Shubman Gill, the captain, backed him up with a half-century. The pair added 113 runs for the second wicket. That stand broke New Zealand’s grip on the game. India reached 143 for 5 in 22.4 overs. They had 56 balls left unused. That’s how comfortable the win was in the end. The series score is now India 1, New Zealand 0.
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The record that fell
Midway through his knock, Kohli passed a giant. He went past Sachin Tendulkar to become the highest run-scorer in ODI run chases. A "chase" means batting second, trying to reach the other team’s total. Kohli now has 8,741 runs in ODI chases. Tendulkar finished with 8,720. The gap is just 21 runs now, but the speed of it stands out. Kohli got there in 169 innings. Tendulkar needed 232 innings. Kohli averages 66.21 in chases. Tendulkar averaged 42.33. That’s a gap of 23.88 runs per dismissal, by this desk’s own subtraction. It was a night of more than one record. Kohli also crossed 13,000 ODI runs batting at No. 3. He is the first player to do that. He also brought up his 80th ODI fifty. He got a standing ovation at Eden Park when he walked off. Kohli turns 38 on 5 November. This was quite a way to walk into that birthday.
Why Kamboj, not Arshdeep, got the award
Here’s the surprise of the night. Arshdeep took four wickets. Kamboj took two. Yet Kamboj was named Player of the Match. The BCCI confirmed the award on its own post. The reason was control. Kamboj bowled 10 overs, gave away only 22 runs, and bowled 2 maidens. A maiden is an over with no runs at all. He also bowled 46 dot balls. A dot ball is a ball with no run scored. New Zealand’s batters just couldn’t get him away. His economy rate was 2.20 runs per over. That’s 22 runs divided by 10 overs. Reports call it the joint-best 10-over spell by an Indian fast bowler in New Zealand in 21 years. Kamboj also got two big wickets: captain Mitchell Santner and Nathan Smith. One thing to clear up: Kamboj did not score 22 runs. The "22" in his figures is the runs he gave away while bowling. He did not face a ball with the bat. That’s rare for a Player of the Match, and it’s why this award got people talking. Kamboj himself kept it simple after the match. He said the key was hitting the same line and length again and again, not worrying about how the pitch was behaving. He had a rough ODI debut last month, giving away 82 runs without a wicket against West Indies. This was his second ODI. Quite a comeback.
What comes next
The second ODI is in Wellington on Saturday. India will want to press home the lead. New Zealand will want a quick reply, and they’ll need their batters to handle India’s young pace attack better than they did in Auckland. For Kohli, the chase record is done. The next question is how far he can stretch it in the four ODIs still to come.
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FAQ
Q: What was the revised target, and why?
A: Rain cut the match to 32 overs, so the DLS formula set India 143 runs to win instead of the original 186.
Q: What record did Kohli break?
A: Most runs in ODI run chases — 8,741, past Sachin Tendulkar’s 8,720.
Q: Why was Kamboj Player of the Match with only 2 wickets?
A: For control: 2 for 22 in 10 overs, with 2 maidens and 46 dot balls, on a ground where runs usually flow.
Sources
- India TV News, 4 Nov 2026
- Gulf News, 5 Nov 2026
- Outlook India, 4 Nov 2026
- Times of India, 4 Nov 2026
- News18 live blog, 4 Nov 2026
Sasanka Sekhar Pradhan is the founder of India Presents, an India-focused news site. He covers daily box-office trackers, India news, economy explainers, sports previews and festival guides — in simple English, so readers across India can follow fast-moving stories without jargon. His focus is what a story means for the reader: the number that matters, the source behind it, and what happens next. India Presents publishes daily, with day-trackers updated as new figures come in.
