Virat Kohli recently completed 16 years in international cricket and has received rich praise from former Pakistani batter Basit Ali. He has been a consistent performer for the national team throughout the years, and his statistics have secured his spot as one of the best batters in modern cricket history.
His record speaks for itself with almost 14,000 ODI runs and 8848 Test runs in 295 ODIs and 113 Tests respectively. He has a total of 80 international centuries to his name and is the only batter with 50 centuries in ODIs.
Kohli recently retired from T20Is with 4188 runs in 125 games after India won the T20 World Cup 2024.
Basit Ali, a former Pakistan cricket team player, offered a huge compliment to Kohli, saying that while it is simple to just mention that Kohli has had a 16-year-old international career, young people should watch how he prepares and deals with the ups and downs of such a lengthy playing career.
"The likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Younis Khan, and Javed Miandad had very long careers, and they spent top-quality time with their hard work. It is very easy to say that Virat Kohli has played for 16 years now.
But do today's kids know the ups and downs he has seen? Do they know how early he wakes up to train in the gym on a match day? Similarly, Sachin Tendulkar was so much in love with cricket that he slept with a bat by his side," Basit Ali said on his YouTube channel.
Basit reminded out that Kohli's genius extends beyond his batting. During the YouTube chat, he stated that Kohli's intensity is significantly more than that of his teammates.
"Just look at his dedication and the hard work he puts in. Even if he gets out early, he gives it all in the field. You can feel that Kohli is on the ground just by the noise the crowd makes when the ball goes to him. This is the result of the hard work he has put in for 16 years," he concluded.
Kohli is on a break from cricket at the moment and will be in action when India takes on Bangladesh in a two-Test series.
