Who is better between Kohli and Tendulkar? Sourav Ganguly gives his verdict

Former BCCI president Sourav Ganguly gave his verdict on Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli's comparison on Wednesday.

The former India captain also hailed Virat Kohli for his amazing performances across the formats in the last 14 years as an Indian player.

Kohli scored his 45th ODI hundred against Sri Lanka in Guwahati on Tuesday, thus inching closer to Sachin Tendulkar's record. Tendulkar scored 49 ODI hundreds in his career and now the former is only four centuries away from equalling the record.

Virat Kohli also scored consecutive hundreds on 11 occasions, having already scored a hundred in the previous match against Bangladesh in December last year. Virat Kohli also scored his 73rd career century, and is the highest-scoring active centurion at this moment.

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Sourav Ganguly was asked a question related to the Tendulkar vs Kohli comparison, and the Prince of Kolkata ducked away from the question. He denied going into the debate and said it was difficult to compare them. However, Ganguly heaped praises on Kohli, saying 45 centuries is not an overnight achievement.

"It's a difficult question to answer. Kohli is a fantastic player. He's played many such innings, 45 hundreds don't happen like this. He's a special talent. There will be periods when he will not score, but he's a special player," Ganguly said as quoted by PTI.

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Although Virat Kohli is still four centuries away from Tendulkar, he has already reached 45 ODI tons in 257 innings. Sachin Tendulkar took 452 innings to reach his 49 ODI hundreds.

Virat Kohli has been a stalwart for Indian cricket and is tipped to reach greater heights in the coming days. The Delhi-born player had a poor first half of 2022 with the bat, but has rejuvenated himself since the T20 World Cup in Australia.

India will be taking on Sri Lanka in the second ODI on Thursday in Kolkata. India won the first match in Guwahati by 67 runs. The home side scored 373/7 after batting first, and the visitors only managed 306 runs in the chase. India captain Rohit Sharma (83 off 67 balls), Shubman Gill (70 off 60 balls) also starred with the bat, while Umran Malik picked up 3 wickets.