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Wasim Jaffer believes Virat Kohli can play for India for 3-4 more years and potentially break Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 100 centuries.
Virat Kohli celebrates after completing his maiden century in Champions Trophy. (Picture Credit: AFP)
The former Indian cricketer Wasim Jaffer reckons that Virat Kohli can continue playing for India for three or four more years and also break Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 100 centuries in international cricket.
Kohli who is 36 years old currently has 82 international centuries with 51 tons in ODIs, 30 in Tests and one century in T20I cricket respectively. His most recent century came against Pakistan in the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 group-stage fixture to lead the Men in Blue to a win by six wickets in Dubai.
But prior to the start of the tournament, concerns were raised due to Kohli’s struggles with consistency. Even in the T20 World Cup in 2024, Kohli struggled to get significant scores but managed to score a crucial half-century in the final against South Africa. In Tests, his only significant knock was against Australia in Perth scoring a century in a winning cause. But India went on to lose the series with Kohli struggling to score in most of those games.
“As a cricket fan, you want to see Virat as much as you can. With the form he was in (against Pakistan), nobody wants to see him get out. When he makes runs everybody is happy, and I am sure everyone wants Virat to play for 3-4 more years and break all records,” Jaffer said during the launch of a corporate cricket league, here on Wednesday.
“The century record is one that looks like Virat is going to break. When Sachin Tendulkar made 100 centuries it looked it will never be broken but the way Virat made runs since 2010 it looks like he will break that impossible thing. If Virat breaks that Sachin Tendulkar will also be very happy,” he added.
He also talked about how Shubman Gill is the next superstar of Indian cricket but felt that it was unfair to already be comparing him to Kohli and rather wants the opening batter to continue his stellar form for the national team.
“It will be unfair on Shubman to judge him with Virat Kohli, Shubman is making his own road. He is playing terrific cricket. In the England series, he was man-of-the-series, he made a good start to the Champions Trophy and I hope he will continue because everybody has expectations from him. He and the likes of Yashasvi Jaiswal are going to take Indian batting forward,” he shared.
