ICC Champions Trophy 2025: Ricky Ponting, the former captain of Australia, praised “Chasemaster” Virat Kohli, saying he hasn’t seen a “better player” than the Indian batting mainstay in the 50-over format. Ponting also supported the batting ace to surpass the great Sachin Tendulkar as the top run scorer in One-Day International competition.

In a Champions Trophy encounter here on Sunday, Kohli led India to a six-wicket victory against Pakistan with an outstanding undefeated hundred, his 51st in ODIs.

“Virat Kohli is the best 50-over player I’ve ever seen, I believe. Ponting told ICC Review, “I’m sure he would want to give himself the best chance to be remembered as the all-time leading run scorer in the game now that he’s passed me (in the run-maker’s list) and only two (batters) ahead of him.”

A unique group was formed when Kohli passed the 14000-run milestone in one-dayers during that century, joining Tendulkar and former Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara.

At 36, the champion batsman has little time to surpass Tendulkar’s record, since he is still 4,341 runs behind him (14085 runs). Ponting, however, did not believe that Kohli could not succeed.

He obviously works very hard on that aspect of his game and is likely in the best physical shape of his life. When you consider it, it’s absurd, isn’t it? The fact that Virat is still 4,000 runs behind Sachin despite his lengthy history of success.

It just serves to highlight Sachin’s skill and durability in the game. However, you never write someone like Virat off. He said, “I’m never going to write him off (to surpass Tendulkar) if the hunger is still there.”

Ponting described Kohli as a big match player and said that a match against Pakistan often brought out the best in him.

Indeed, in 2022 (the T20 World Cup), he faced the squad he would most likely be best prepared to play against. Pakistan needed a player at the top of the order to perform a game-winning innings like that when they had batted first on a difficult pitch.

“Once again, Kohli was the one who completed the task. For a very long time, he has been a champion player. The Australian stated, “And especially in the white-ball formats, where he’s been an unbelievable 50-over player.”

According to Ponting, the difference between India and Pakistan that evening was Kohli’s century.

“If you look at the two scorecards, you can see that Virat scored 100 and that many Pakistanis started without anybody scoring a significant amount of runs.

“I’ve always said that a 50 never wins you or your team anything, regardless of the game’s structure. You must get high scores. Therefore, not only were there no individual high scores, but there were also no significant partnerships, Ponting said.

Senior batsmen Mohammed Rizwan and Babar Azam, according to the Tasmanian, were unable to provide Pakistan with the kind of service that was wanted.

They haven’t been able to provide their squad with their utmost effort. Both of the men had to get up. Pakistan may not advance to the semi-finals because they haven’t been able to produce the massive runs they needed to in the first two games,” Ponting said.