‘He’s no less than any Ronaldo’- Former Pakistan opener drops a big statement on Virat Kohli

Former Pakistan batter, Salman Butt, recently, heaped praise on Virat Kohli. Butt released a video on his Youtube channel, in which, he drew Kohli’s comparisons with Cristiano Ronaldo in terms of fitness standards.

“He’s no less than any Ronaldo. Among all the top fitness freaks sportsmen around the world, he stands right up there”. Butt made the remark following India’s win in the third ODI against Sri Lanka.

Virat Kohli notched his second hundred in three-match ODI series against Sri Lanka. He notched up his second-best score in his ODI career, scoring 166 runs in 110 balls, including 13 fours and 8 sixes.

“I think Virat Kohli is back to his best, maybe back to his normal. He used to score plenty of runs and hundreds consistently. This is the absolute way of playing ODI. You make a steady start, play ball-by-ball, put away bad balls and score run on good deliveries. Once fully set, he was consistently able to hit it over the boundary easily. There was a low-risk factor. This shows how much control he has over the game when he is on the song,” Butt added.

Looking at his performances since the Asia Cup 2022, it would be fair to say that India’s run-machine is back to his prime form. In the last four ODIs, he has managed to score 3 centuries and, in the process, he also surpassed Ricky Ponting to reach second on the list of most centuries in international cricket.

Kohli now has 74 centuries to his name, only behind Sachin Tendulkar, who holds a record 100 centuries in international cricket. As far as ODIs are concerned, Virat Kohli is now just three centuries short of Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 49 ODI tons.

Given the kind of form he is in, it won’t take a lot of time for him to match that. Meanwhile, India are next slated to play a three-match T20I and three-match ODI series against New Zealand, starting 18th January 2023.