‘In ODIs, I will….’ – When Virat Kohli made bold claim of emulating Sachin Tendulkar’s 50-over heroics

Virat Kohli is surely not having the best of time on the 22-yard cricket strip. After having resigned as India’s captain from T20Is and Test cricket, and being sacked as the ODI skipper, Kohli’s form remains a cause of concern for the Men in Blue heading into the 2022 T20 World Cup, in Australia.

Kohli ended India’s recent tour of England without a single half-century across formats. The 33-year-old’s century-drought, thus, also continues since late 2019; in the pre-Covid era. When he was at his peak, Kohli was slamming tons left, right and centre; especially dominating in the ODI format. In 2013, when the star batter had only nine tons in the 50-over format, he had made a bold claim of emulating Sachin Tendulkar’s heroics in ODI cricket.

“That Virat Kohli’s one-day record is phenomenal is an understatement. And he is inching closer to that record of Sachin’s – whether he gets there or not that’s not the point. I will tell you a little story. In 2013, we went to sign Virat in LA, for Oakley. And we were sitting there. Virat had come with his manager Bunty and I had come down from Mumbai. I was doing the Champions League and has gone down just to sign him. And sitting there, as a 24-year-old with 9 ODI hundreds under his belt, he sat down and said, ‘One-Day mein toh main paaji (Sachin) ko pakad loonga. Paaji had 49 hundreds,” claimed Ashwin Krishnan — head of Sports Marketing at Oakley — while speaking to Jamie Alter on his Glance chat show, The Alternate View.

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Thus, Kohli’s confidence need to be credited as even though he might not have matched SRT’s ODI tons so far, he is only six behind equalling with the legendary batter, the right-hander went onto slam a plethora of triple-figure scores in the format till late 2019. To date, Kohli has 43 tons and is the only active player who is closest to surpassing Tendulkar in terms of most ODI tons (49). In Tests, he has 27 tons and is way behind the former Indian batter’s tally (51).

The Indian cricket fans would hope for Kohli to return to his ton-scoring ways sooner than later as the Rohit Sharma-led Men in Blue are gearing up for the 2022 T20 WC in Australia, from October-November.