West Indies batting great Brian Lara on Thursday, 4 July likened Virat Kohli to a run machine, avowing that the India skipper is way ahead of rest of the world when it comes to batting across formats.
Indian batting great Sachin Tendulkar remains Lara’s all-time favourite but in today’s era, he said it is Kohli, who is the best.
"He (Virat Kohli) is a (run) machine. But sorry to say Sachin Tendulkar is my (choice)," he said after being conferred the doctorate in science (honoris causa) by the DY Patil University in Nerul in Navi Mumbai.
"But getting back to your question, no doubt there is a huge gap between Virat Kohli and the rest of the world in all forms of the game. Rohit Sharma might have got four centuries in this World Cup, (Jonny) Bairstow or whatever, if you want somebody to bat in T20, T10, 100 balls (cricket) or Test cricket, it is going to be Virat Kohli today,” added Lara, who still holds the record for highest score in Tests.
Lara, who scored 22,358 runs (11,953 runs in ODIs) in international cricket, said if Indian batsmen today are performing well in away series, it is because of Tendulkar, who instilled such confidence in them.
“The (impression) Sachin left on the game is just unbelievable, because he sort of bridged that period, where you felt that when an Indian batsman leaves the Indian soil, Indian pitches behind, they are not that good. But Sachin Tendulkar was good on every surface and all of the Indian batsman are good on every single surface today, I think simply because they took a page out of his (Sachin’s) book,”Brian Lara
Meanwhile, Lara was pained to witness the plight of Caribbean cricket. The West Indies have already been knocked out of the World Cup semifinal race, he said, "We have been turned to a corner. Every country, every sports team goes through a little bit of cycle, but we seem to be in the same position for quite some-time, which is unfortunate."
During the over-hour programme Lara spoke at length about his early days as a cricketer, facing the spinner duo of Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne as well as his relationship with Tendulkar.
DY Patil Univesity Chancellor Dr Vijay Patil was present on the occasion.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)