With Indian star cricketer Virat Kohli equaled the centuries record of legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar on 5 November against South Africa during the ongoing ICC Men's World Cup in Kolkata, Tendulkar congratulated Kohli in his unique fashion.
Taking to X, formerly referred to as X, the 'God of Cricket' wrote, Well played Virat. It took me 365 days to go from 49 to 50 earlier this year. I hope you go from 49 to 50 and break my record in the next few days. Congratulations!! #INDvSA"
Virat Kohli scored his 49th century and scored an unbeaten 101 runs in 121 balls, hitting ten fours, and equaled the ‘Master Blaster’s centuries' record. Not only this, Kohli was also the third Indian batter to score an ODI century on his birthday.
Looking at the data, Tendulkar scored his 49th century in his 451st ODI innings, while Kohli took his 277th innings in his 289th match to reach this milestone. So there is difference of 175 innings between Tendulkar and Kohli's innings.
Among other records, that were shattered including the one where he scored more than 1000 ODI runs in a year for the eighth time, surpassing Tendulkar's record of seven.
In this 2023 World Cup, Kohli already has two centuries and four half-centuries in eight league games. Apart from this, he is also the second-highest run-scorer in the ongoing tournament, just behind Quinton de Kock who scored 542 runs.
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After his record-equaling innings, he said, as quoted by ESPNcricinfo, "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," he said.
Meanwhile, batting first, India scored a whopping 326/5 in 50 overs against the Proteas in Kolkata. For India, Kohli scored an unbeaten 101, while Shreyas Iyer hit 77 runs, skipper Rohit Sharma made 40 runs and Ravindra Jadeja was unbeaten at 29 runs.
For the Proteas, Lungi Ngidi, Marco Jansen, Kasigo Rabada, Keshav Maharaj, and Tabraiz Shamsi took one wicket each.
Chasing 327, South Africa lost Quinton de Kock (5) in the second over. Temba Bavuma (11) and Rassie van der Dussen (4) are on crease. South Africa have scored 21/1 in 7 overs, until the report was filed.
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