Off The Field

‘Was I Crying For This?’: Virat Kohli Opens Up On Scoring 71st International Ton After Long Drought

Written by Vishwas Gupta

Virat Kohli’s century drought of almost three years since November 2019 is as famous as the star cricketer himself. A high-flying internatinal career suddenly lost the track as centuries stopped coming out of the bat of Kohli — the player who was believed to break the record of 100 centuries made by the legendary Sachin Tendulkar. At the start it seemed like a short-term struggle for Kohli to score a ton — what would have been his 71st at the highest level, but the woe continued and despite being among runs, the right-handed batter had to wait for almost three years before he scored one.

Playing in the Asia Cup against Afghanistan in September, 2022, Kohli scored his maiden T20I hundred which also saw him putting an end to the long wait of international century.

Opening up on his emotions after the century, Kohli revealed that he questioned himself if it was the thing that he was cribbing about for the past two years.

“The ball before I got to the 100, is the time I felt, oh I am on 94, I could probably get this. And the next ball went for six. But the thing is that as soon as I go the 100, I laughed so hard. (I was like), ‘main iske liye ro raha tha 2 saal se? (Was I crying for this for 2 years?)’,” Kohli said an episode of ‘Let There Be Sport’, which is streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.

Kohli currently has 75 international centuries to his name and he is only behind Tendulkar in the all-time record. Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting is third on the list with 71 tons.

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Vishwas Gupta