Virat Kohli has the second most international centuries after Sachin Tendulkar (100) at 70 for India and third most overall behind Ricky Ponting's 71. And if had not been for his poor run of form for the last three years or so, the count would have been much higher.
Kohli is widely regarded as the most prolific and complete batter India has produced after Sachin. And he has 43 ODI centuries to his name, just 6 behind legend Tendulkar’s tally of 49 tons, and probably the only one who can equal his record or even go past him.
Ashwin Krishnan, head of Sports Marketing at Oakley, recalled his meeting with 24-year-old Virat Kohli in 2013 and shared how confident he was talking about his confidence and how he can easily catch up to Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 49 ODI centuries.
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"That Virat Kohli's one-day record is phenomenal is an understatement. And he is inching closer to that record of Sachin's - whether he gets there or not that's not the point. I will tell you a little story. In 2013, we went to sign Virat in LA, for Oakley. And we were sitting there. Virat had come with his manager Bunty and I had come down from Mumbai. I was doing the Champions League and has gone down just to sign him. And sitting there, as a 24-year-old with 9 ODI hundreds under his belt, he sat down and said, 'One-Day mein toh main paaji (Sachin) ko pakad loonga. Paaji had 49 hundreds," Krishnan told Jamie Alter on his Glance chat show, The Alternate View.
Krishnan further opined that despite his low scores, Kohli is not out of form. Instead, he feels that Kohli is not in focus mentally. He added that a player of Kohli's caliber can't not be in form and that once he gets it right, runs will flow from his bat.
"For a boy sitting there and saying I'll get 40 one-day hundreds, just like that - not to mention the Test hundreds that he had - goes to show his confidence. So when somebody says Virat Kohli is out of form, I say 'No, he is not out of form'. Just his mind is not in the right place. He is exactly the Virat Kohli he was. You cannot take away from a man of that quality. You cannot," he mentioned.
