There was a time when Virat Kohli was unstoppable in international cricket. No matter the format, Kohli always stood tall for India and led the team to remarkable wins. It was in 2019 when Kohli suffered a massive dip in form and did not score a hundred in international cricket for three years before getting the monkey off his back by scoring a hundred against Afghanistan in the Asia Cup 2022. Kohli scored a few hundreds since the ton against Afghanistan but he hasn't looked the same player he was, especially in red-ball cricket.
Before going into the massive slump, Kohli was well on the way to breaking Sachin Tendulkar's record of 100 international centuries, however, the three-year period where he did not a score a hundred made the task stiffer. Most cricket pundits now feel it will be tough for Kohli to get near Tendulkar's feat, especially given the fact that he retired from T20Is and probably won't play ODIs for long. Kohli has 80 hundreds to his name and needs 20 hundreds to hundreds to join Tendulkar in the elite list.
Despite his sluggish form in recent times, Former England cricketer Monty Panesar feels Kohli can break Tendulkar's stellar feat. Panesar, however, added that Kohli would have to regain the form he showed in 2016. Kohli scored over 2500 runs across formats in 2016, including three double-hundreds in Tests. He also showed staggering form in the IPL and scored a whopping 973 runs.
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“There’s a possibility of that as well. He was in his best form in 2016. He needs to come back to that zone. Sometimes it’s also about the motivation. He might think why am I working so hard at this point. We can say only Sachin paaji was so motivated all the time. He still motivates young cricketers,” Panesar said as quoted by CricTracker.
Panesar Backs Joe Root To Break Sachin Tendulkar's Most Test Runs Record
While Kohli is still a fair way away from breaking Tendulkar’s record of most international hundreds, Joe Root has a realistic chance of going past Sachin in the list of most Test runs. Root needs 3519 runs to break Tendulkar’s feat, and Panesar feels there are great odds that Root would leapfrog Tendulkar in the list.
“I think there’s a possibility. Everyone in England is calculating that. Whenever Joe Root scores, everyone starts calculating the difference. The gap is probably 3500 runs and I think he can definitely play for four more years. So, to score 4000 runs in four years is possible. Also, I think Sachin paaji played till 40. There’s a genuine chance for Joe Root to break the record. It’s debatable whether it's good for the game but everyone in England wants Root’s name on the top of the list and surely, Indians want Sachin to be number one,” Panesar said.