The cricketing world and a whole bunch of Indian fans celebrated as Virat Kohli, after 1019 days, finally scored an international century. Kohli, who had gone 2020 and 2021 without a single hundred, slammed his maiden ton in T20Is as he plundered 122 off 61 balls to power India to a dominating 101 runs win against Afghanistan in their final Super 4 match of the Asia Cup at the Dubai International Stadium on Thursday.
Twitter was flooded with reactions as a plethora of former and current cricketers went berserk seeing Kohli finally score a century after almost three years. The last time that Kohli had scored a century was back in November of 2019 – a player who once used to conjure centuries for fun, went two years and 10 months without one, but with the World Cup just around the corner, there couldn't have been a more opportune moment for Kohli to have slammed this century. Here are some of the reactions.
This was Kohli's first century in 129 innings. Records and achievements tumbled for Kohli who has now become only the fourth Indian player after Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul to score centuries in all three formats. Kohli's 122 not out is also the highest individual score by an Indian in T20Is, and with the century, Kohli has equalled Ricky Ponting as the second-highest century-maker in world cricket, and is now only behind the great Sachin Tendulkar.
{{/usCountry}}This was Kohli's first century in 129 innings. Records and achievements tumbled for Kohli who has now become only the fourth Indian player after Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul to score centuries in all three formats. Kohli's 122 not out is also the highest individual score by an Indian in T20Is, and with the century, Kohli has equalled Ricky Ponting as the second-highest century-maker in world cricket, and is now only behind the great Sachin Tendulkar.
{{/usCountry}}Kohli, opening the innings for India in place of a rested Rohit Sharma, struck 12 fours and smoked 6 sixes during his knock. It was a vintage Kohli knock and it seemed as if the Virat of old had never left. He scored his runs at a strike-rate of 200 and with it, he topped the run charts in the Asia Cup, overtaking Pakistan wicketkeeper batter Mohammad Rizwan.