'Trying to get to Tendulkar's record of 100 int'l hundreds': Hogg gives his take on Kohli stepping down as T20 captain
Hogg reckons the reason why Kohli has decided to give up India's T20 and RCB's captaincy is because he wants to focus on batting so that he can break the great Sachin Tendulkar's record of 100 international centuries.
In a matter of days, Virat Kohli has surprised the cricketing fraternity twice. On Thursday, Kohli first announced that he would step down as India's T20I captain at the completion of the T20 World Cup. People were only beginning to come to terms with it before Kohli dropped another bomb on Sunday, informing that the IPL 2021 would be his last as captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore.
While experts and former cricketers from all around the world have come up with opinions as to why or why not Kohli is right, joining the bandwagon is former Australia spinner Brad Hogg, who has an interesting take on the matter. Hogg reckons the reason why Kohli has decided to give up India's T20 and RCB's captaincy is because he wants to focus on batting, so that he can break the great Sachin Tendulkar's record of 100 international centuries.
"He has stepped down from the international position of T20 captain and also RCB. This is a bigger picture, where he is concentrating on the longer format of the game. He wants to lead India in Test cricket and ODIs. But there's a record in his eyeline as well - trying to get that Tendulkar record of 100 international hundreds," Hogg said on his YouTube channel.
At present, Kohli has 70 international centuries – 43 in ODIs and 27 in Tests, and while the India captain is close to equalling, and perhaps overtaking Tendulkar's tally of 49 ODI centuries, he still has a long way to go to get to the Master Blaster's record of 51 Test tons. Hogg thinks Kohli would want to give most of his attention on Test cricket so he would become the leading centurion in the format.
"He's well up there with Sachin in ODIs, having got 43 hundreds at the present moment. But he has only got 27 hundreds in Tests. Tendulkar got 51 hundreds in 200 games. I think Kohli wants to concentrate on Test cricket and match Tendulkar's record of having 50 Test hundreds under his belt. He wants to become one of the greats as well. I think that's where Kohli's going," the former spinner explained.