There is always a great deal of sentiment attached to the game of cricket, be it superstitions like batters preferring to take the first ball of the innings or following a routine before facing a ball. Similarly, there is also a tendency for the batters or bowlers to take a liking to a particular venue.
It may not be necessarily their home ground, but a player does feel comfortable playing at a single venue as it would have fetched him a lot of runs or wickets in the past. For instance. Virat Kohli, born in India, has scored 3 Test tons and 2 ODI tons at the Adelaide Oval in Australia.
So in this article, we will see the 15 batsmen who have scored the most centuries in a single venue as far as the ODI format is concerned.
Most ODI Centuries at a Single Venue
| Player | Innings | ODI Centuries | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ricky Ponting (AUS) | 41 | 7 | Melbourne Cricket Ground |
| Saeed Anwar (PAK) | 51 | 7 | Sharjah Cricket Ground |
| Sachin Tendulkar (IND) | 42 | 7 | Sharjah Cricket Ground |
| Hashim Amla (SA) | 15 | 5 | Supersport Park, Centurion |
| Tillakaratne Dilshan (SL) | 15 | 5 | Pallekele International Cricket Stadium |
| Sikandar Raza (ZIM) | 48 | 5 | Harare Sports Club |
| Tamim Iqbal (BAN) | 84 | 5 | Shere Bangla National Stadium |
| Quinton de Kock (SA) | 11 | 4 | Supersport Park, Centurion |
| Inzamam-ul-Haq (PAK) | 59 | 4 | Sharjah Cricket Ground |
| Sanath Jayasuriya (SL) | 70 | 4 | R. Premadasa Stadium |
| Virat Kohli (IND) | 13 | 4 | R. Premadasa Stadium |
| Virat Kohli (IND) | 15 | 4 | Shere Bangla National Stadium |
| Calum MacLeod (SCOT) | 14 | 4 | Grange Cricket Club |
| Steve Smith (AUS) | 15 | 4 | Sydney Cricket Ground |
| Brendan Taylor (ZIM) | 59 | 4 | Harare Sports Club |
Key Stats:
1: Number of batters to feature in this list twice, and he is none other than Virat Kohli. The former Indian skipper has made four ODI centuries each at Mirpur and Colombo, respectively.
In fact, Kohli made his fourth ODI ton at the Premadasa Stadium in the Super 4 game against Pakistan in the 2023 Asia Cup, and this one was his fourth consecutive in 4 ODIs at this venue. He made an unbeaten 122 to go with his 3 tons in his last 3 innings, and all of them came against Sri Lanka.
Kohli also hit 4 centuries in the format at the Shere Bangla Stadium in Mirpur, and this includes his career-best score of 183 against Pakistan and maiden World Cup ton vs. Bangladesh in 2011.
Also Read | Top 10: Most Centuries for India in ODI Cricket
Hashim Amla was the first cricketer to score 4 successive centuries at a single venue, and he accomplished this at the SuperSport Park in Centurion. He scored 4 centuries in 4 knocks at this venue against 4 different oppositions between 2015 and 2017.
The other player who has scored 4 or more tons at the SuperSport Park is South African keeper-batsman Quinton de Kock.
3: The number of players on the list who have scored 4 or more ODI tons at the iconic Sharjah Cricket Ground. While Sachin Tendulkar and Pakistan’s Saeed Anwar have scored centuries 7 times at that venue, Inzamam-ul-Haq managed to accumulate 4 tons from 59 innings at the venue.
Sharjah holds the record for hosting the most number of ODIs at 247, and these 2 countries have played many times at this venue before the turn of the century.
7: The most centuries hit by a batter in a single venue in the 50-over format of the game have come from 3 different batters at 2 venues. While we mentioned Sachin and Anwar scoring them at Sharjah, the person to hit those many tons at a venue is Ricky Ponting, who has achieved that feat at the equally iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground.
2: Likewise, Harare Sports Club has witnessed 2 batters score 4 or more ODI centuries, and they are Zimbabwe stalwarts Sikandar Raza and Brendan Taylor. While Raza has made 5 tons in ODI cricket at this venue, which has hosted the 2nd most ODI contests, the former skipper Taylor has amassed 4 tons in the capital city of Zimbabwe.
1: The only associate player on the list is Callum MacLeod, and he has made 4 of his 10 ODI tons at the Grange Cricket Club in Edinburgh. He has played 14 innings at this ground, scoring 637 runs, and one of his 4 tons was a brilliant 140* against England, which came in a winning cause.
84: Number of innings the former Bangladeshi skipper Tamim Iqbal has played at the Shere Bangla stadium in Mirpur to score 5 centuries. It is the most anyone on this list has played at a single venue.
15: Number of innings former Sri Lankan skipper Dilshan took to amass the same number of tons as Tamim did at Pallekele.
4: 4 of Steve Smith’s 12 ODI centuries have come at the Sydney Cricket Ground, and 3 of those came against the Indian team. The star batter likes the Indian bowling attack, as he made 5 centuries in the format versus them.
Also Read | Steve Smith ODI Centuries List
Apart from these 14 fine batters, there are 2 other instances of players scoring 4 or more tons at a single venue. They are Ross Taylor of New Zealand, who hit 4 centuries in 19 innings at Seddon Park in Hamilton, and then, of course, the little master Sachin Tendulkar, who has scored 4 centuries at Premadasa Stadium in his 26 innings at the venue.
