After 1020 long days, Virat Kohli, the modern-day batting great smashed his 71st century only to leave the fans of Indian cricket team to go gaga. He became the cricketer who has the second most centuries in the world along with Ricky Ponting with his century against Afghanistan. The entire cricket fraternity, irrespective of which team they belong, has been lauding the cricketer for his mammoth feat.

The milestone we’d all been waiting for and here it is!

71st International Century for @imVkohli 🔥💥#AsiaCup2022 #INDvAFGpic.twitter.com/hnjA953zg9

— BCCI (@BCCI) September 8, 2022

The cricketer seems to have found his mojo back finally and what’s more special is that the right handed batsman score 122 runs with a strike rate of 200. The century came in the 5th match of the Asia cup 2022 Super 4 round against the Mohammad Nabi led Afghanistan team on Thursday, 8th of September.

Last time Kohli scored a century in an International match was during November 2019. The century came exactly after 2 years, 9 months and 16 days and it is notable that it is Kohli’s maiden T20 century. He became the fourth Indian to score a century in all three formats after Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul.

The Delhi born became the fastest to achieve this particular feat as he took 522 innings to complete 71 centuries whereas Ricky Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar took 652 and 523 innings respectively. The innings consisted 12 fours and 6 sixes and it helped India to post a huge total of 212 runs on the board after winning the toss.

Team India won the match comfortably as they restricted the opposition within 111 runs in the 20 overs. “Firstly I am grateful for how the day went today. Time away from the game gave me a good chance to sit back and observe a lot of things about me. I mentioned one special person – Anushka – who stood by me through these tough times and I mentioned her as she has seen the absolute raw side of me throughout all these months. She was the one putting things in perspective for me, kept giving me the right kind of guidance, vision moving forward and I came back into the system as a relaxed person. It was just about enjoying the game, understanding the game and what God blessed you with” said the cricketer after winning the man of the match award. “What surprised me was my 60s became failures; quite shocking for me, batting pretty well and contributing but doesn’t seem to be enough” he further said.

Virat Kohli dedicated to Anushka ❤️ He is back #ViratKohli𓃵 #Kingkohli #AsiaCupT20 pic.twitter.com/rT94FstGrW

— Atiff Chandail (@ChandailAtif) September 8, 2022

“I have absolute no shame in admitting that God is blessing us all with everything in our destiny, we just have to work hard” Kohli said and went on to add “I have had many suggestions, lot of advice has come my way; people were telling me I was doing this wrong, that wrong, I picked out all the videos from the best time I had; same initial movement, same approach towards the ball and it was just what was happening inside my head I wasn’t able to explain it to anyone. At the end of the day you know as an individual where you stand, people will have their opinions but they cannot feel what you are feeling. I am very grateful for that time and needed it to change my perspective.”

Among the many experts who reacted to the century scored by the legendary batsman, the most special one came from De Villiers, Kohli’s former RCB teammate. “@imVkohli
dancing again! What a lovely sight” he said through his tweet and said “When I spoke to him yesterday I knew something was brewing💪 Well played my friend” in his next tweet.

Check out his tweets below :

@imVkohli dancing again! What a lovely sight

— AB de Villiers (@ABdeVilliers17) September 8, 2022

When I spoke to him yesterday I knew something was brewing💪
Well played my friend

— AB de Villiers (@ABdeVilliers17) September 8, 2022

De Villiers also shared a throwback picture of himself with Kohli and said “With his 100 today I thought I’d share this memory😂Top knock today my friend. Many more to come” to which Kohli replied back calling his friend as biscuit.

 

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A post shared by AB de Villiers (@abdevilliers17)

Here’s Kohli’s replies :