Srinagar: Batting superstar Virat Kohli has termed it a ‘stuff of dreams’ after scoring record breaking 50th ODI Century in World Cup 2023 semifinal in front of plethora of personalities.
“It’s stuff of dreams, Anushka was sitting right there, Sachin paaji 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.”
Tendulkar had 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.
“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, feels surreal, 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.”
But that wasn’t the only record of Tendulkar’s that Kohli broke during his historic hundred. He also went past Tendulkar for the most runs in a single edition of the ODI World Cup. Tendulkar had scored 673 runs in the 2003 World Cup; Kohli passed that tally when he scored his 80th run in Wednesday’s 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.
