Why Virat Kohli hasn't hit 100 international hundreds yet: The nervous nineties numbers show the near misses

Virat Kohli's 84 international centuries could have been 96 if he had converted 12 scores in the 90s.

Virat Kohli has 84 international hundreds, a number that already lives in the rare air. But there is a cleaner way to measure how close he has been to the sport’s most mythic batting landmark: 100 international centuries.

Virat Kohli reacts as he leaves the field after losing his wicket during the first ODI vs NZ.(AP)

It sits inside one bucket of evidence - the 12 times Kohli has finished in 90s (90-99) in international cricket, nine dismissals and three not-outs.

The alternate scoreboard: 84 becomes 96

If each of those 12 innings had crossed the three figures, Kohli’s century tally wouldn’t read 84. It would read 96. Same career, came oppositions, same ears - just 12 scorecards where “almost” turns into “hundred”.

This isn’t a case of the 90s haunting him every other week. Twelve 90s across 624 international innings is roughly one nervous nineties finish every 50-odd innings., The reason it feels larger is simple: the 90s are loud. They become highlights, debates and punchlines. A routine 73 disappears into the archive but a 93 does not.

The tiny margin that guards big legends

Now for the part that makes the what-if feel most unfair. Across those 12 innings in the 90s, Virat Kohli has scored 1128 runs. If each innings simply became a 100, the total would be 1200. The entire difference between 12 more hundreds and what actually happened is 72 runs across an entire international career.

Seventy-two runs. That is the whole argument.

Spread across 12 innings, it is an average short fall of 6 runs. Six runs is a single mis-hit that still races the rope, plus a scramble two when the infield hesitates. It can also be one choice: whether to force a tight single on 98, whether to take on the deep fielder on 99, whether to play risk-free when the match situation demands risk.

That is why the 90s are such a cruel space. They are not only about skill, they are about timing, context and the strange pressure that arrives when every delivery feels louder than that last.

The three not outs

The three not-outs in Kohli’s set complicate the easy narrative of failed to convert. Not-outs in the 90s often occur because the chase is completed, the overs run out, or partners disappear.

In other words, not every 90 is a missed chance in the same way. Sometimes the innings ends before the batter gets the chance to finish it himself - and Kohli, more than most, has built his career on reading the match before reading his own numbers.

What it really says about Kohli

The honest conclusion is that the 96 alternate reality doesn’t diminish Kohli; it underlines how thin the line is between greatness and folklore. Kohli’s real superpower has been reaching the doorstep relentlessly and converting often enough to build a mountain of hundreds. The 12 innings in the 90s simply show that even for the most consistent run-maker of his generation, the final step can be decided by a handful of balls.

And that is the most revealing part of the 100-century chase: it has never required a miracle. When the gap between 84 and 96 is 72 runs, the distance to the next landmark is not a cliff. It is a few moments that end differently.

Put another way, those 12 conversions would have left Kohli just four short of 100 centuries. That is the landmark continues to hover over his late-career batting: that path is not steep, just unforgiving. One run-out avoided, one fort dismissal delayed, one chase that needed an extra over - and history would have been written differently.