Will Kohli top the 2011 ODI run list?

There is just one more ODI to be played in 2011, which sounds a little strange in a year full of cricket. Is it a little surprising to know that there have been more than 140 ODIs played this year? These include the South Africa-India series, Australia-England, the ICC Cricket World Cup, India in England and vice versa and a host of other one-day series across the world.

India have played the most ODIs of any country this year - 33 games in all - and have won 20 of them, including their biggest win, in the World Cup final. However, the team with the most wins is Pakistan, who have won 24 out of 32 games in a year where they have come out strongly despite myriad problems off the field.

Following on from our analysis of Test batsmen in 2011, we would now like to see who are the best batsmen to have emerged from the one-day arena over the last 12 months. All the figures below are for the year up to 8 December.

As in the case of Test cricket, 2011 has been a good year for left-handed batsmen. Five of them have scored more than 1,000 runs, while only one leftie, Kumar Sangakkara, has achieved the same feat. The top 10 right-handed batsmen have also scored more runs than the top 10 left-handers, and they have a better overall average and strike rate. They have also scored more than twice as many centuries and exactly twice as many sixes.

The last match of the year will feature India and the West Indies, so if Virat Kohli gets to bat he will be in a good position to overhaul Jonathan Trott’s total of 1,315 calendar runs. He is just 14 runs behind and has been in good form of late, coming in the top three run-scorers of the India-West Indies series and one of the best by Batting Momentum.

The only two Indians that have bettered him in the four ODIs so far are Rohit Sharma and Virender Sehwag, the latter coming up with his record-breaking double century in the last game. Predictably, Sehwag’s double ton is the highest score of the year, but he has not had the same success over the year as a whole and does not feature in the top 10.

One batsman who almost had a shot at a double century of his own was Shane Watson. The Aussie smashed 185 not out off just 96 balls in a match against Bangladesh, hitting a record 15 fours and 15 sixes in the process. He did not run out of overs or partners, but as Australia were chasing 229, it was a case of too few runs being available to him. He outperformed everyone on the Castrol Index that day, but, although he scored more than 1,100 runs this year, he may be disappointed in only going on to hit two centuries out of a total of 10 fifty-plus scores.

Even if you subtracted those 15 sixes from his year’s total of 42, he would still be the biggest hitter of the year among the selected batsmen. He can also boast of a fantastic average and the best strike rate among these 20 batsmen.

Individual performances, however, cannot guarantee a good team performance. But how about four good individual performers? There are four Sri Lankan names in the two tables (Sangakkara, Upul Tharanga, Mahela Jayawardena and Tillakaratne Dilshan), who have all scored quite a healthy number of runs this year. And yet, Sri Lanka have not had their best year of cricket. They did make it to the World Cup final, but have failed to carry through much momentum after that, culminating in their rather disappointing series loss to Pakistan recently.

It has been a great year for ODIs. With an exciting World Cup, individual and team records being broken it has all added up to some terrific cricket. What will 2012 hold for us?