Former South African player AB de Villiers has described Virat Kohli’s achievement of reaching 49 ODI tons in 277 innings as lightning-fast. Saying that things were quite different during the era of Sachin Tendulkar, who took 451 innings to score the same number of hundreds, De Villiers claimed that Kohli’s feat is still an incredible one. However, Kohli brought up his 49th ODI century on his 35th birthday in the match against South Africa at Eden Gardens in Kolkata. He smashed 101* off 121 balls as well.

In a video on his YouTube channel, De Villiers said, “It has taken Virat 277 innings to get to 49 hundreds. That is very quick even though it’s a new generation kind of thing that is lightning fast. The two of us are really close. We are basically brothers and I am very happy for Virat. It’s a new generation and you can’t really compare numbers, especially the time in which Sachin did it – 451 innings as against Virat’s 277. He’s done it in faster time, but the game has changed dramatically since Sachin played. 250 in an ODI innings is almost laughable these days on a good wicket. You look at 400.”

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In 277 ODI innings, Virat Kohli has amassed 13626 runs which came at an average of 58.48 and a strike rate of 93.55, with 49 tons and 70 fifties. Meanwhile, After scoring his record-equaling 49th ODI ton, Kohli downplayed all the comparisons with the batting legend Sachin Tendulkar and stated that he could never be as good as his idol.

“Virat also said that in his interview – Sachin will always be the greatest. Virat is always really good like that, giving respect to other people. Especially when he breaks records or when his stats are looking better, he is always the first to say, ‘no, no, by no means am I greater than this guy’. Maybe he is, maybe he is not. That’s not the point. The point is, he has scored 49 hundreds and that’s equal to Sachin’s record,” AB de Villiers concluded.