Virat Kohli grabbed headlines after his announcement of stepping down as the T20 captain of India. While fans and experts were trying to digest this fact, Kohli dropped another bomb by announcing this IPL 2021 will be his last tournament as the skipper of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB).
Former Australia spinner Brad Hogg discussed the right-hand batsman’s decision of leaving India and RCB captaincy as the left-arm chinaman believes he wants to focus on batting so that he can break the great Sachin Tendulkar's record of 100 international centuries.
“He has stepped down from the international position of T20 captain and also RCB. This is a bigger picture, where he is concentrating on the longer format of the game. He wants to lead India in Test cricket and ODIs. But there's a record in his eyeline as well - trying to get that Tendulkar record of 100 international hundreds,” Hogg said in his latest YouTube video.
Currently, the Delhi-based cricketer has 70 international centuries, 43 in ODIs and 27 in Tests. As Kohli is pretty close to equaling and perhaps overtaking Tendulkar’s 49 ODI centuries, he is a long way away from the Mumbai-based cricketer’s 51 tons in the longest format of the game.
“He's well up there with Sachin in ODIs, having got 43 hundreds at the present moment. But he has only got 27 hundreds in Tests. Tendulkar got 51 hundreds in 200 games,” the left-arm wrist spinner said.
“I think Kohli wants to concentrate on Test cricket and match Tendulkar's record of having 50 Test hundreds under his belt. He wants to become one of the greats as well. I think that's where Kohli's going,” the 50-year-old concluded.
With RCB losing their UAE-leg opener against KKR, it will be exciting to see how Virat Kohli goes about in the upcoming games of IPL 2021.
