'Tendulkar's real greatness was...': Sachin's ex-India teammate identifies Virat Kohli's 'big mountain'

With every international century, the legend of Virat Kohli grows even further. If after Sachin Tendulkar any India batter has captivated the imagination of the world quite like the Master Blaster, it's Kohli.

With every international century, the legend of Virat Kohli grows even further. If after Sachin Tendulkar any India batter has captivated the imagination of the world quite like the Master Blaster, it's Kohli. In the 1990s and 2000s, Tendulkar helped believe an entire nation that they could be No. 1 as in Sachin they found the world's greatest batsman. Decades later, Kohli has taken the baton forward. Like every other class batter, Kohli underwent a slump in form but the way he roared back last year during the Asia Cup and built on it with back-to-back centuries, the belief is that 2023 will once against be the year of The King.

Virat Kohli is closing in on Sachin Tendulkar's record ODI centuries (Getty Images)

With Kohli peeling off his 45th ODI century, it is only a matter of time before he hits five more and surpasses Tendulkar for the most hundreds in the format. With at least two more years left in Kohli's career, it will happen, especially 2023 being a World Cup year and India playing plenty of ODIs. Purely in terms of batting, Kohli has been Tendulkar's worthy successor – he is miles ahead of the rest of the Indian batsmen and it is only fitting he goes past his idol.

Having said that, Kohli's real challenge is not the next five ODI hundreds, but equalling Tendulkar's tally of Test tons, reckons Sachin's former India teammate Sanjay Manjrekar. Tendulkar, with 51 centuries, is miles ahead of the pack, and Kohli trails that mammoth number by 22 more hundreds. At 34, with 29 Test centuries, Kohli has a lot of catching up to do but Manjrekar hopes Virat can keep that target and try hard to achieve it.

"It's Sachin's Test hundreds that are going to be a big mountain for Kohli to climb. He (Kohli) is an all-time great in this format (ODI); not saying that he is not a Test match great. Tendulkar's real greatness was 51 Test hundreds. That's the one which is going to be a real pursue for him and I hope he carries that aspiration and gets there," Manjrekar, Tendulkar's former Mumbai and India teammate said on the Byju's Cricket Live Show.

While Kohli and Tendulkar played a good amount of cricket together and were India teammates between 2008 and 2013, it was only after Sachin's retirement that Kohli really became one of the world's greatest batters. Some of the other Tendulkar records Kohli has the potential to break are for most runs by an India batter in away ODIs and in a particular country away from home.