Virat Kohli, burning bright in the middle of the night!
Drawing comparisons to Viv Richards, Kohli has proven to be a poet with a bat, as opposed to a pen, in hand.
Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forest of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Based on recent performances, it wouldn't be too out-of-place to assume that English poet William Blake may have been refering to a future Virat Kohli in his poem 'The Tyger'. Based on yet another match-winning performance in the sixth ODI vs Australia in Nagpur on Wednesday, the comparison is apt.
From a youngster with loads of potential to becoming one of India's most reliable match winners, the journey of Virat Kohli has only just begun. Often criticised for being too hot headed, Kohli has used his fearlessness to become on of the best ODI bastmen in the world currently.
The hallmark of Virat's game is his ability to help India chase down huge targets. He has been involved in as many as six 300 plus successful run chases and has scored centuries in five of them. India recorded the second and third highest run chases in ODI history in the on-going series, with Kohli scoring sensational centuries in both of them. Cricket analyst Harsha Bhogle opined that Kohli's dual innings was equivalent to Sachin Tendulkar's iconic twin tons in Sharjah in 1998.
"I have always liked batting under lights and when I have a target on the board it is always easy to analyse how many runs you need and at what point of time' says Kohli. As Blake would have put it, Kohli does burn bright under lights!
The Delhi boy has been on a record spree recently. He is the fastest man to score 15 ODI hundreds, he is the fastest Indian to score 4000 ODI runs and he needs 81 runs in his next ODI innings to break Viv Richards' record of the fastest player to reach 5000 ODI runs.
What's more at the age of 24 Kohli has 17 ODI hundreds...something that even Sachin Tendulkar didn't achieve.
NDTV's cricket expert and former Australian bastman Dean Jones feels Virat will go past Sachin. Speaking exclusively to NDTV he said, "I will tell you he will get past Sachin. He will play 30 ODIS a year for the next 15 years and he will pass Sachin, who would have ever thought of that?"
Former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar also agreed with Jones. "Well I think that is what human progress is all about, records are meant to be broken, said Gavaskar. "We know that some of the records that Sachin has got may be impossible. I don't think anybody is going to reach 200 Test matches nor anyone is going to reach 51 Test hundreds but the manner in which Virat is batting the record for 49 (ODI) hundreds looks possible."
Of course even getting close to Sachin's records is a phenomenal feat. For the time being though cricket fans will just be happy with the fact that as Sachin's career comes to an end, there's another Sachin in the making in Indian cricket.