There have been constant comparisons between Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli, over and again. There is a whole bunch of fans, which absolutely loves making comparisons between Sachin and Kohli. Both the cricketers enjoy a cult fan following. Virat Kohli is the best batsman in the world at the moment that too by a country mile while people regard Sachin Tendulkar as the greatest batsman to have graced the game. One is India’s kingpin at present, the other was the whole and sole hope of the country in the 1990s.
Australian spinner, Shane Warne, however, feels it is unfair to compare two batsmen from different eras. Warne was quoted as saying by Times of India, “Very hard to judge when someone is playing and very hard to judge eras,” Warne said. “Think about the bowlers in the ’90s. Different surfaces that seamed. Now they’re a lot flatter. The ball swung more. So many invariables. But to think that someone was better than Brian Lara and Sachin – in those mid-’90s – against Wasim, Waqar, Curtly, Courtney, McGrath, Donald, Saqlain, Mushy, Vettori, Murali, myself. You can go on.”
He further added, “Virat is breaking all the records, which is great but I want to wait. See, what people miss is this: You can set benchmarks, score those many centuries, average that high, score a lot many runs. But what people are going to remember you for is the way you played the game. Someone should run down the street and ask fans, how many runs did Mark Waugh make or what his average was? They wouldn’t have a clue but chances are, here’s what they’ll say: I loved watching him play.
Warne reckons Kohli will go down as the best ODI batsman of all-time with Viv Richards. “To my mind, what’s already evident is that Virat is one of the best players of all time. In One-dayers, he probably has to go down with Viv Richards as the greatest ever, not so much for the record but for the way he plays his game. But I’ll judge him at the end of his career,” said Warne.