Can Virat Kohli Overtake Sachin Tendulkar's Tally Of 100 Centuries? Ricky Ponting Has His Say

Prior to the start of the Asia Cup 2022, former India skipper Virat Kohli had taken a month-long break from cricket. The right-hand batting dynamo also opened up about his struggles with mental health during the period when he suffered a lean patch.

The break clearly helped as Kohli finished the Asia Cup as the second-highest run-scorer with 276 runs in five matches at a strike rate of 147.59, which included two fifties and a hundred.

Ricky Ponting is optimistic that Virat Kohli can track down Sachin Tendulkar’s feat

Kohli also notched up his 71st international ton after a wait of almost two years. Now, having equalled Ponting’s record in the process, there is only one name on the list of most tons above Kohli now – Sachin Tendulkar with 100 centuries.

Speaking to ICC Review, the former Australian skipper said, “If you would have asked me three years ago, I’d have said yes. But the fact that it has slowed down as much as it did… yeah, I still think that it is possible for him, there’s no doubt.”

“I still think he has got a number of years ahead of him, but I guess to still be 30 international hundreds behind, that’s a lot. That’s five or six Test hundreds a year maybe for the next three or four years. If you throw a couple of one-day ones, maybe the odd T20 ones on top of it.”

Ponting believes there is still a lot of cricket left for Virat Kohli

Questions have now turned again to Tendulkar’s tally, and whether Kohli can find a late-career boost to track that down.

Echoing on the same lines, Ponting stated, “It’s (the century) taken a bit longer, the last couple of years because he has been in that century-making drought if you like, it has taken a bit longer to get to me than I thought it was going to.”

“But look, he is obviously one of the all-time greats and there’s still a long time to go in his career. It was good to see him back in the runs,” the Aussie added.

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