It was happy to reach my milestone and it’s dream come true said Indian batting star Virat Kohli who scored his 50th hundred at the world cup semi final against New Zealand in Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Wednesday. It’s stuff of dreams, Anushka( my wife )was sitting right there, Sachin Tendulkar was there in the stands,” Kohli said while being interviewed during the innings break. “I mean, it’s very difficult for me to explain this, but if I could paint the perfect picture, I would want this to be the picture. My life partner, the person I love the most, she’s sitting there. My hero, he’s sitting there.and I was able to get the 50th in front of all of them and all these fans at Wankhede as well, such a historic venue. It was amazing.”added Virat Kohli.
Sachin Tendulkar scored his 49th hundred in his 451st ODI innings, Kohli had equalled that landmark in just 277 innings – against South Africa in India’s penultimate league game of this World Cup – and then broke the record in his 279th innings at Wankhede stadium.
“I said it in Kolkata, the great man (Sachin Tendulkar) just congratulated me, all this feels like a dream for me, honestly,” Kohli said. “It’s too good to be true, , I never thought I’ll be here ever in my career. Just to help the team so many times, again, a big game today, I had to kind of play the role I’ve played throughout the tournament so that the guys around me can go and express themselves. Just glad that everything came together so nicely and we put up a great total on the board as well..
Virat Kohli hundred wasn’t the only record of Tendulkar’s that Kohli broke during his historic hundred. He also went past Tendulkar for the most rune in a single edition of the ODI world cup .
. Tendulkar scored 673 runs in the 2003 World Cup; Kohli passed that tally when he scored his 80th run in semi-final and went on to become the first batter to score 700 runs in a ODI World Cup. By the time Kohli was dismissed for 117 off 113 balls, he had 711 runs in the tournament at an average of 101.57 and strike rate of 90.68.
This hundred was Kohli’s third of this World Cup to go with five half-centuries in ten matches. In the semi-final, he came into bat in the ninth over of India’s innings, with the score on 71 for 1, and put on 93 off 86 balls with Shubman Gill and 163 off 128 balls with Shreyas Iyer.
Kohli brought up his half-century off 59 balls and then scored his next 50 runs off 53 deliveries, . He played the anchor role as India amassed 397 for 4, the highest total in a knockout game of a World Cup.
“As I’ve said a lot of times before, the most important thing is to make my team win, and whatever it takes to do that, I’m ready to do that, whether it’s running singles and doubles, hitting boundaries, whatever the team wants me to do,” Kohli said.
“I’ve been given a role in this tournament, and I’m trying to play that to the best of my ability, trying to dig deep, bat long, so that the others can play around me and have that confidence that I’m going into the later overs where I can dominate with the bat as well. That’s the only key to consistency I guess, just playing according to the situation, added Virat Kohli.
Indian batting coach Vikram Rathour said we know his skills and he used his experience very well and it’s good for team success . We know our batting strength and Virat added more power to go forward said Indian batting coach .We had some work to do before the world cup but during the world cup they are doing really well he said.
New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson also highly appreciated Virat ’ s achievement.It was exceptional and getting 50 hundreds is special and he has shown his class said Kane
Dhammika Ratnaweera reporting from India