File photo of Virat Kohli.© BCCI
Former Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar believes that India batter Virat Kohli is going to score 110 international centuries by the time he brings down curtains on his career. After a wait of 1205 days, Virat Kohli last week finally registered a Test century, bringing up three figures on day four of the fourth Test against Australia in Ahmedabad. Kohli brought up his 28th Test century. There was a gap of 41 innings between his last century and this one, with the previous one coming over three years ago against Bangladesh in November 2019.
Kohli scored 186 runs as his knock played a crucial role in helping India play out a draw with Australia and eventually book a World Test Championship final with Australia.
Kohli currently has a total of 75 international centuries to his name. He stands second on the list of batters with most international tons that is topped by Sachin Tendulkar.
Akhtar feels that with the burden of captaincy removed from Kohli’s shoulders, he will score runs like a “beast” and cross the 100-century mark.
“Virat Kohli had to get back in form so it’s nothing new for me. The pressure of captaincy was on him, finally, he is now mentally free. Now he will play with so much focus. I have complete faith in him that he will score 110 centuries and break the record of Sachin Tendulkar’s 100 international tons. Now He doesn’t have a load of captaincy and will score run like a beast,” Akhtar said while applauding Kohli as quoted by ANI.
The “Rawalpindi Express” said that Sachin Tendulkar was his favourite wicket during his international career.
“I remember once I told my teammate that I will take the wicket of Sachin. At that time we were playing in Kolkata. On the very first ball, I bagged the wicket of Sachin Tendulkar in front of a 1 lakh crowd. I still remember half of the ground went empty after Sachin returned,” said Akhtar.
(With ANI Inputs)
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