One of the greatest of all time, Virat Kohli came close to matching Sachin Tendulkar’s record of scoring the most number of centuries in ODI cricket as he scored 88 runs against Sri Lanka in the Cricket World Cup 2023 match on Thursday. But, Kohli couldn’t go the distance with the bat, seeing his innings ending just 12 runs short. However, his performance was such that fans once again reiterated his status as the best batter of this generation. As there remain those who think otherwise, retired Pakistan cricketer Mohammad Amir silenced all those comparing Kohli to other top stars of this era.In a chat on Geo News, Amir gave a fitting response to all those comparing Kohli with other top batters, saying had the India superstar played against minnows like Nepal, Netherlands, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, he would’ve broken Tendulkar’s record (most ODI tons) long ago.”I don’t know why people keep comparing Virat Kohli; any comparison is stupid. Secondly, you have to look at the player’s intent. He was playing ball-to-ball (against Sri Lanka), and he was trying.”If Virat Kohli played series against Netherlands, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Zimbabwe then he would have broken Sachin Tendulkar’s record by now. He doesn’t play against these teams,” Amir said on the show.
In the match against Sri Lanka, Kohli scored 88 runs to go second in the list of top-scoring batters in this World Cup, with South Africa’s Quinton de Kock being the only one ahead of him.”Very happy knowing that we have officially qualified now. Been a good effort from the squad, when we started off in Chennai. This was our goal, to qualify first and then obviously to be in the semis and the finals. The way we approached these 7 games, it was quite clinical. Everyone put in the effort and a lot of individuals have put their hand up. Was a good challenge to put runs on the board, and that’s the kind of template you gotta have when you want to score that many runs.
50 on any pitch is a very good score and a lot of credit to the batting unit for taking us to that score and the bowlers did the job obviously. Shreyas is a very strong (in his mind) lad and today, as you saw, he went there and did what he is exactly known for and that is what we expect from him,” he said.
