The BCCI President was speaking on a podcast after Kohli ended his century drought in the Asia Cup 2022.
Kohli’s journey on the field, particularly in the last two years or so, has been extensively documented, with the major portion of the narrative surrounding the fact that the Delhi lad had not been able to get to three figures in any format of the game.
Although there were conflicting opinions about the quality of his game, there were many experts who suggested that even through his so-called struggle, Kohli’s quality was clearly visible. Despite his performances in the last 24 months being criticised to no end, Kohli was India’s highest run-getter throughout his century drought, scoring 2870 runs across formats.
However, Kohli silenced his critics yet again, as he has done numerous times in his already illustrious career, scoring a magnificent 122* against Afghanistan in the 2022 Asia Cup. It was a festival of extraordinary strokeplay, and a story of remarkable acceleration as well, as he raced from 59 to 122 in the space of 21 deliveries, striking at a mind-boggling 300.
Targeted for his strike rate in the shortest format, Kohli’s innings offered a fierce rebuttal to his naysayers. A typical Kohli masterclass, the century was followed by adulation across the sporting world, including BCCI president and former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly.
Ganguly heaped praise on the masterful Kohli, calling him “a much more skilful player” than himself and believed that Kohli would surpass him in all respects at the end of his career.
“The comparison should be in terms of skill as a player. I think he is more skilful than I’m. We played in different generations, and we played a lot of cricket. I played in my generation, and he will continue playing, probably playing more games than I did. Currently, I have played more than what he has but he’ll get past that. He is tremendous,”
Ganguly said.
The RCB man currently has 71 centuries at the international level, second only to the great Sachin Tendulkar, and level with Aussie legend Ricky Ponting. He also has in excess of 24,000 international runs to his credit, including close to 3600 runs in T20Is, a format in which he, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma, and Kiwi great Martin Guptill have alternatively held the record for most runs for the better part of six years.
With the T20 World Cup fast approaching, big things will be expected of the Indian side, who were knocked out of the group stages of the 2021 edition of the tournament. The T20 World Cup is set to begin in Australia on October 16, with Sri Lanka and Namibia kicking off proceedings at the Kardinia Park in Geelong.
