SYDNEY, Nov 29: Virat Kohli on Sunday became the ninth Indian cricketer to make 250 appearances in One-Day Internationals (ODIs). He reached the milestone during the second ODI of the ongoing three-match series against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
The 32-year-old, who made his ODI debut on August 18, 2008 against Sri Lanka, has also represented India in 86 Tests and 82 T20Is. Kohli has scored more than 21,000 international runs across formats till now.
Overall, Sachin Tendulkar holds the record for making most ODI appearances for India. Tendulkar played 463 ODIs in his stellar career in which he scored 18,426 runs with the help of 49 hundreds. Besides, he also played 200 Tests and one T20I scoring 15,921 and 10 runs respectively.
The 'Master Blaster' is followed by MS Dhoni (347 ODIs), Rahul Dravid (340), Mohammad Azharuddin (334), Sourav Ganguly (308), Yuvraj Singh (301) and Anil Kumble (269) in the list of most ODI appearances by Indian players.
Overall, Tendulkar's 463 ODI appearances are also the most by any cricketer in the history of the 50-over format. Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene played 448 ODIs and comes second in the list. Next to follow are Sanath Jayasuria (445), Kumar Sangakkara (404), Shahid Afridi (398), Inzamam-ul-haq (378) and Ricky Ponting (375). - IANS
UK govt appoints vaccine rollout minister
London, Nov 29: The UK government has appointed Nadhim Zahawi, an MP for Stratford-on-Avon, as a new health minister to oversee rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine in England, Downing Street announced.
"The Queen has been pleased to approve the appointment of Nadhim Zahawi MP as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care," Xinhua news agency quoted Downing Street as saying in a statement on Saturday.
In a tweet, Zahawi welcomed his new post, saying: "Delighted to have been asked by (Prime Minister) Boris Johnson to become the Minister for Covid vaccine deployment.
"A big responsibility and a big operational challenge but absolutely committed to making sure we can roll out vaccines quickly-saving lives and livelihoods and helping us build back better."
Under the interim arrangement, Zahawi will serve as a joint minister between the health department and the business department, where he currently works, reports the BBC.
His primary focus will be on delivering the vaccine, with most areas of his business portfolio put aside.
Zahawi will look after deployment of the vaccine in England only, but will work with the devolved administrations on their chosen approach.
Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be responsible for the vaccine's distribution in their relevant nations.
Zahawi's appointment comes as a further 479 deaths were reported in the UK on Saturday, bringing the total to 58,030.
There were also a further 15,871 positive cases registered in the past 24 hours, which increased the overall infection tally to 1,609,141.
Currently, the UK government has placed orders for 100 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, 40 million doses of the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech and five million doses from the US firm Moderna. - IANS
