'One-day mein toh Sachin paaji ko..': Virat Kohli's 9-year old quote goes viral

Source: Twitter

Star India batter Virat Kohli is struggling for runs these days but many experts feel that he will bounce back to form very soon. Since IPL 2022, the going has been tough for Kohli, who once was a run machine and scoring 100s was a piece of cake for him. But the game of cricket, as they say, is a great leveller and even the greats go through a lean patch. Only that in Virat's case, the patch has been slightly longer. The 32-year-old took a break from international cricket after successive failures in all 3 formats of the game in England. He is not part of the India squad for the ODIs and T20s and would be back with the team when the Zimbabwe tour comes around. He is also set to be part of the Asia Cup squad.

Virat has been stuck at 70 international tons for more than 3 years now. And back in 2019, it appeared as if he would break Sachin Tendulkar's record 100 hundreds easily. Kohli is seen as the next batting great from India after Tendulkar. However, his bad form has led to many thinking that he may not be able to get past Tendulkar now. 

Back in 2013 though, Kohli had told someone that he can go past Tendulkar's 49 ODI tons record. He had said this to Ashwin Krishnan, head of Sports Marketing at Oakley. 

'Ready to do anything': #ViratKohli's statement on winning #AsiaCup2022 and #T20WorldCup titleshttps://t.co/HavlSDRoRi — Zee News English (@ZeeNewsEnglish) July 24, 2022

Krishnan told the story to cricket journalist Jamie Alter in a chat. Here's what he said: "That Virat Kohli's one-day record is phenomenal is an understatement. And he is inching closer to that record of Sachin's - whether he gets there or not that's not the point. I will tell you a little story. In 2013, we went to sign Virat in LA, for Oakley. And we were sitting there. Virat had come with his manager Bunty and I had come down from Mumbai. I was doing the Champions League and has gone down just to sign him. And sitting there, as a 24-year-old with 9 ODI hundreds under his belt, he sat down and said, 'One-Day mein toh main paaji (Sachin) ko pakad loonga. Paaji had 49 hundreds."

Today, Kohli has 43 ODI tons and needs 6 to equalise Sachin's record of 49 tons and 7 more to go past him. In this bad form, will he be able to do that, is the biggest question.