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Virat Kohli Equals Sachin Tendulkar’s 49th century in ODI World cup 23
Virat Kohli roars with his bat against South Africa at Edens Gardens, Kolkata in an ongoing campaign in India on 5 November. The greatest of all time turns 35 today. Before the clash against South Africa in a practice session, Ex -Australian Batsman and captain Ricky Ponting and Ab de Villiers the former South African big hitter well known as 360 congratulated him on his birthday. On his day, he won the hearts of the World’s cricket fans with his incredible unbeaten inning of 101 runs off 121 balls and leveled Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 49th centuries in ODI. The veteran Sachin Tendulkar scored 49 centuries in 452 innings of his one-day international career. Whereas, Virat Kohli completed 49 centuries in his 277 innings. He holds the record of 13,625 runs in total 289 matches in his ODI career.
“Every opportunity to play for India is big one for me. To be able to do that on my birthday, in front of the whole crowd, it’s stuff of dreams, something that as a child you wish had happened, I am very grateful to God that I have been blessed with these kinds of moments, so much love from the fans as well and just continue to help the team in any way possible, It was a tricky wicket to bat on, We got a great start through Rohit [Sharma] and Shubman, and then when I got in, my job was to keep that momentum going, but as soon as the ten overs got over, the ball started gripping and the wicket started slowing down as the ball got older. Our roles are different - me and Shreyas [Iyer], we wanted to string in a partnership and to be honest, as soon as we lost Shubman and Rohit within ten overs, my role was to bat deep and bat till the end because that’s what I have done over the years and that’s what the communication from the team was well; I bat and guys bat around me and then Shreyas started hitting a few. So, we were not thinking that we would get 327 [326] but that’s what happens when you dig deep and you take the game into the last few overs then you can get a few more than you thought, We had a lot of practice sessions before we went to the Asia Cup. I and Shreyas invariably batted together, because No. 3 and 4, against spinners. And I spoke to him, This is the partnership that has to take centre stage through the middle overs, So both of us are pretty comfortable rotating the strike against spinners. Whatever loose balls he got, he put them away, credit to him, As I said, when you lose two wickets and don’t have Hardik [Pandya] in your team, you need to bat deep and make sure that you get to a stage where the opposition feels like we have to restrict them, rather than thinking we are one wicket away from 30 runs lesser than what we had to chase. He batted beautifully according to the situation and strike rotation was the key.” He said after a historic hundreds in ongoing match #IndvsSA.
With the unstoppable World Cup journey of back-to-back 7 winning streaks, The men’s in Blues is the first team to qualify for the semifinals.
