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Batting maestro Virat Kohli has made one “hell of a record” by smashing his 50th ODI hundred but there is no one getting close to the milestone by a far distance, believes Indian great Gundappa Viswanath. Kohli eclipsed Sachin Tendulkar‘s 49 ODI hundreds during his 117 against New Zealand in the World Cup semifinal on Wednesday to propel India into the final for the first time since 2011. “Sometime back, I had said that if at all anyone can come closer to Sachin’s 100s, it will be Kohli. I didn’t expect that he is going to break it,” Viswanath told PTI during an interview.
“His consistency, I mean, all are talking about his hundreds but the way he has been getting 70s and 80s, any batsman will take that. It is (only) because of his consistency that he got 50-plus scores. The way he approaches his cricket, he has a lot of cricket in him.
“There are not many who can come closer, even though Rohit (Sharma) has around 30 plus hundreds, so (there is) still a long way (to go) for him, but rest I can’t pinpoint somebody is there to come close. He has achieved one hell of a thing scoring one more than Sachin,” he said.
Besides 50 ODI centuries, Kohli also has 29 hundreds in Tests and one in T20Is for a total of 80 scores above 100.
During the semifinal, Kohli also became the first batter ever to break the 700-run barrier in a single World Cup edition with one more game to go.
“I am not comparing him with Sachin because they are two different cricketers, (there are) no comparisons but both are great, absolutely legends. The best part is they know what they are doing. Sachin knew what he was doing and Kohli said he is my guru and he is going along the way,” he said.
“It is amazing, Kohli’s batting,” Viswanath said.
Tendulkar scored 49 tons in ODIs and 51 centuries in Tests and is the only batter till date to have a century of hundreds to his name.
Can Kohli break Tendulkar’s record of making a hundred international tons? “Well, it all depends on how many Test matches we play. Few are coming up with South Africa and England, you can’t get 100s in all the matches but he is capable of scoring. We will have to see,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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