NEW DELHI: Rachin Ravindra‘s World Cup keeps getting better, as New Zealand‘s left-handed batter with Indian roots has now notched up most runs by a player making his debut in an ODI World Cup.
The Kiwi, whose first name Rachin is coined from the names of Indian batting legends Rahul Dravid & Sachin Tendulkar, has already scored three centuries in this edition, which is also a record by a batter playing his first World Cup. Rachin’s knock of 42 runs during New Zealand’s five-wicket win over Sri Lanka in Bengaluru on Thursday took him to 565 runs to leave England’s Jonny Bairstow (532 runs) behind. Bairstow had set that record on his World Cup debut in 2019.
The New Zealander also has the best average among the top five batters with most runs on ODI World Cup debut.
Here’s the list:
The Kiwi, whose first name Rachin is coined from the names of Indian batting legends Rahul Dravid & Sachin Tendulkar, has already scored three centuries in this edition, which is also a record by a batter playing his first World Cup. Rachin’s knock of 42 runs during New Zealand’s five-wicket win over Sri Lanka in Bengaluru on Thursday took him to 565 runs to leave England’s Jonny Bairstow (532 runs) behind. Bairstow had set that record on his World Cup debut in 2019.
The New Zealander also has the best average among the top five batters with most runs on ODI World Cup debut.
Here’s the list:
| PLAYER | YEAR | FOR | INNINGS | RUNS | HIGHEST | AVERAGE | 100s | 50s |
| Rachin Ravindra | 2023 | NZ | 9 | 565 | 123* | 70.62 | 3 | 2 |
| Jonny Bairstow | 2019 | ENG | 11 | 532 | 111 | 48.36 | 2 | 2 |
| Babar Azam | 2019 | PAK | 8 | 474 | 101* | 67.71 | 1 | 3 |
| Ben Stokes | 2019 | ENG | 10 | 465 | 89 | 66.42 | 0 | 5 |
| Rahul Dravid | 1999 | IND | 8 | 461 | 145 | 65.85 | 2 | 3 |
New Zealand chased down Sri Lanka’s 171 with ease on Thursday to go to 10 points and virtually book themselves a place in the semi-finals alongside hosts India, five-time champions Australia and South Africa.
The win boosted the Kiwi net run rate to the point from where it is almost impossible for Pakistan or Afghanistan to catch up even if they level New Zealand at 10 points by winning their respective last league matches.