Virat Kohli recently drew level with his cricket hero Sachin Tendulkar by hitting a record-equalling 49th ODI century – the joint-most by any batter in the format’s history.
While acknowledging the enormous feat he had just achieved, Kohli, during an interview, said Tendulkar is ‘perfection’ to him in terms of batting and he’s overwhelmed at having gotten to the same level as the legendary cricketer.
“It is all too much for me to take in now, to equal my hero’s record is something special for me. He is perfection when it comes to batting,” Kohli had said after his innings against South Africa during India’s eighth match of the 2023 world cup in Kolkata.
Follow all the action from the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 including the World Cup schedule, World Cup 2023 results, and ICC Cricket World Cup points table. Players are vying to top the World Cup 2023 Most Runs and World Cup 2023 Most Wickets charts.
Later, he admitted that scoring 49 ODI hundreds isn’t something he ever dreamt of.
“Quite an emotional thing for me,” Kohli said on a video shared by BCCI.tv. “I mean, I grew up idolising him, I started to play for India watching him play and just to equal his record in ODIs is a surreal moment for me. I never thought in my wildest dreams that I’ll get here, so I just feel blessed and grateful. As I said in the post match, for me, he is always going to be number one, regardless of whatever happens.”
As the social media began flooding with congratulatory posts, Tendulkar wished Kohli and hopes his former teammate to surpass the record in the world cup itself.
“Well played Virat. It took me 365 days to go from 49 to 50 earlier this year. I hope you go from 49 to 50 and break my record in the next few days. Congratulations,” Tendulkar wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Kohli himself is dreaming of continuing his rich vein of form that has seen him rack up 543 runs from eight innings so far.
“I’m just happy that my journey has come so far that I’ve been able to make it till here and be able to win games for my country like he did. I aspire to do the same thing because if I do that, then it means that we have good chances of winning. So I would love to do it a few more times in this tournament. Especially the big ones – the semis and final. So yeah, fingers crossed. Hopefully I can do it,” Kohli said.
India will next face the Netherlands in their final round-robin fixture of the world cup 2023 before gearing up for the semi-finals.
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