The greatest one-day international (ODI) batter remains a topic of ceaseless debate. Is it Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Viv Richards, or Virat Kohli? For legendary Australian Ponting, however, there is a clear winner.
As one of the greatest batters in cricket history, he has played with or against some legends of the cricketing world, including the great Sachin Tendulkar himself. In Ponting’s opinion, however, no better player has dressed for 50 overs than Kohli.
It is interesting to note that Ponting’s massive praise comes soon after Kohli has extended his record to score a whopping 51 ODI centuries in helping India chase 242 runs against Pakistan, during a group A Champions Trophy match in Dubai.
In doing so, Kohli became the fastest in ODI history to reach 14,000 runs, joining Sachin Tendulkar and Kumar Sangakkara in an elite club.
“I don’t think I have seen a better 50-over player than Virat Kohli,” he told ICC Review. He has now gone past me on the all-time list of run-scorers, with just two batsmen ahead. I am sure he would want to give himself the best chance of being remembered as the all-time leading run-scorer in the sport.”
“Physically, he is probably as fit as ever and works really hard at that side of his game. And really, when you think about that, it’s crazy, isn’t it? Just how good Virat’s been for such a long period of time, and yet he’s still pretty far behind Sachin by about 4,000 runs,” he added.
Kohli currently has 14,309 runs and still lags by 4,341 runs from Sachin Tendulkar’s all-time record of 18,426 runs in ODIs.
Kohli is now 36, with an acceptable amount of time left to make him one to very rarely match or surpass Sachin Tendulkar.
“This shows how great Sachin was but also how long he was able to maintain that quality. However, with someone like Virat, you never write him off. If the hunger’s still there, then I’m never going to write him off (in the process of overtaking Tendulkar),” Ponting said.
Kohli’s century in Dubai is the latest in a long line of extraordinary performances put together to take on India’s main adversary, Pakistan.
“He stood up against the team with which he would probably steel himself the most to play against in 2022 (T20 WC). After Pakistan batted first on a difficult wicket, it needed someone at the top of the order to play a match-winning inning,” Ponting said.
“Once again it was Kohli to finish the job. He’s been at the top of his craft for quite a long time now. And certainly in white-ball formats where he’s been unbelievably good in one-day cricket,” he added.
