Up until November 2019, Virat Kohli looked destined to equal, if not surpass, Sachin Tendulkar’s record for most centuries at the international level. Batting legend Tendulkar is the first and only cricketer in international history to have reached the magical figures of 100 centuries.
After hitting a sparkling hundred in India’s first ever day-night Test, Kohli had to wait a whopping 1,020 days to hit another three-figure score in any form of cricket. He hit a maiden T20I century during the recent Asia Cup 2022 which was his 71st such score across formats.
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Kohli thus moved on level terms with Australia legend Ricky Ponting in the list of players with most centuries.
Three years ago, Ponting was quite sure that Kohli would equal Tendulkar’s record but he’s not sure anymore. However, that doesn’t mean the former Australia captain thinks it’s out of bounds.
“If you would have asked me three years ago, I’d have said yes," Ponting told ICC. “But the fact that it has slowed down as much as it did, yeah, I still think that it is possible for him, there’s no doubt. I still think he has got a number of years ahead of him, but I guess to still be 30 (29) international hundreds behind, that’s a lot. That’s five or six Test hundreds a year maybe for the next three or four years. If you throw a couple of one-day ones, maybe the odd T20 ones on top of it," he added.
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“Look, I’ll never say never with Virat, because you know once he gets on a bit of a roll, you know how hungry he is and how keen for success he is. I’ll never say never that’s for sure," he added.
Ponting, widely regarded as one of the greatest batters to have played the game, was happy to see Kohli returning to form at the Asia Cup where he finished with a century alongside two half-centuries.
“It’s (the century) taken a bit longer, the last couple of years because he has been in that century-making drought if you like, it has taken a bit longer to get to me than I thought it was going to. But look, he is obviously one of the all-time greats and there’s still a long time to go in his career. It was good to see him back in the runs," Ponting said.
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