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Former Indian batsman Manoj Tiwary has shared his picks for the greatest players and moments of ODI cricket. He also named the best ODI Indian team, with Virat Kohli dominating his choice.
Kohli is currently on a break, and is expected to return to action with the upcoming ODI series in England after missing the Afghanistan series due to a minor hamstring issue he suffered during IPL 2026. The former Indian captain is said to have passed the fitness test at the NCA earlier this week.
Manoj Tiwari called Virat Kohli the greatest ODI batsman of all time
Well, Manoj Tiwari has named Virat Kohli as the greatest ODI batsman of all time, ignoring two great batsmen, Sachin Tendulkar and hitman Rohit Sharma. He believes that Kohli’s ability to score runs consistently and chase down difficult targets for India keeps him at the top.
In the last few years, Kohli has won many matches while chasing the target. This powerful right-handed batsman has scored 14,797 runs in 299 innings at an average of 58.72 and strike rate of 93.82.
“Virat Kohli deserves it because of his run-scoring ability and the chase master tag. We know it has been given to him because of the number of matches he has won while chasing,” Cricbuzz quoted Manoj Tiwari as saying.
Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Sachin Tendulkar have been placed in the same elite group
When Tiwary was asked about the best Indian ODI batsman, he chose Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Tendulkar in the same category and said that all three have achieved incredible success and scored a lot of runs for the country. While Tendulkar finished his career with 18426 runs, Rohit has 11720 runs in ODIs so far.
The former KKR batsman then chose Zaheer Khan as the greatest ODI bowler. The former fast bowler played a key role in India’s 2011 World Cup-winning campaign and was one of the greatest match-winners of his generation.
Yuvraj Singh was chosen the best ODI all-rounder
After this Tiwari chose the great Yuvraj Singh as the best ODI all-rounder. He scored 8701 runs and took 111 wickets in more than 300 ODI matches for India. Additionally, Yuvraj won four Player of the Match awards during the 2011 World Cup and finished with 362 runs and 15 wickets.
“He was the Player of the Tournament in the 2011 ODI World Cup, where he contributed a lot with his batting and bowling and everyone remembers him,” Tiwari said.
There is no better team than MS Dhoni’s 2011 champions: Manoj Tiwari
Cricket pundits also termed India’s 2011 World Cup-winning team as the greatest ODI team of all time. That team had world class players in every department like Virender Sehwag, Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Kohli, MS Dhoni, Yuvraj, Suresh Raina and Zaheer.
Harbhajan Singh, Munaf Patel, Sreesanth, Ashish Nehra, Ravichandran Ashwin, Yusuf Pathan and Piyush Chawla were also part of the team. “In 2011, the Indian team dominated and won the World Cup and in my opinion was the best ODI team,” Tiwari said.
Finally, Tiwary selected the famous Australia vs South Africa game of 2006, where South Africa achieved a record target of 434 runs. He described the dramatic Australia-South Africa World Cup semi-final in 1999 as the most memorable ODI moment in cricket history.
