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Overshadowing India’s dominant display of cricket in the ongoing 2023 World Cup, where they remain the only team yet to be beaten in the round-robin stage and the only ever to make the semifinals so far, discussions around Virat Kohli seems to have taken the centre stage each time the hosts play a game. With the former India captain approaching one of ODI cricket’s ultimate feats, still held by Sachin Tendulkar, the when and where have become the cynosure of India’s World Cup matches. And more so with Kohli, in his sublime form in the tournament, falling close to the mark twice in the last three matches. With India facing South Africa next in the clash of the table toppers in Kolkata, Kohli will once again have the possibility of matching Sachin’s world record of 49 ODI hundreds, but former England captain Nasser Hussain warned the team and nation to get their focus back on winning the trophy.
With an unbeaten knock of 103 against Bangladesh in Pune on October 19, Kohli took his tally of ODI tons to 48, one shy of matching his “idol’s” record. A few days later, in Dharamsala, in the match against New Zealand, Kohli looked well set for a second successive century and putting his name beside the legend, but fell agonisingly short of the mark by just five runs. A fortnight later, in Mumbai, hours after Sachin’s statue was unveiled at the Wankhede, Kohli threatened to steal the limelight in the match against Sri Lanka before being dismissed for 88 runs.
On Sunday, as Kohli celebrates his 35th birthday, he will probably have a bigger occasion to get to the mark. The pre-match discussions have mostly been about the same but Hussain, in conversation with Star Sports, reminded India that the most important thing currently is the World Cup and winning the title.
“India should not make this about Virat Kohli’s 49th hundred. He will get there. He will get to 50 hundreds. He will probably get to 100 centuries, he’s that good. But the most important thing is to win the World Cup,” he said.
The former England batter then recalled having a conversation with Sachin when the legend was aiming for his 100th international century and how the talk surrounding it had affected him them. Nasser hopes Kohli can keep himself away from all these noise just like Sachin had done years back.
“I remember talking to Sachin Tendulkar. The only time enormity got to him was when he was going from 99 to 100 centuries. Right from the room service boy to the experts, everyone was asking him ‘when are you getting that 100 century?”. So he sort of hid himself in the corner. I hope Virat finds that corner to hide from this noise just for a few more weeks,” he said.
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