Virat Kohli has identified Sachin Tendulkar's iconic 98 against Pakistan at the 2003 ODI World Cup in Centurion as the one cricketing moment he would most have wanted to experience as a player on the field. Speaking through the YouTube channel of his lifestyle brand One8, the former India captain offered a rare and candid window into the innings that helped shape his own ambitions as a young batter growing up in Delhi.
Kohli, now 37 and currently sidelined with a hamstring injury picked up during the IPL 2026 final, has missed India's recent ODI series against Afghanistan as a result. He is expected to return for the upcoming three-match ODI series against England, having come through another strong IPL campaign with Royal Challengers Bengaluru. Much like sites that track performance data across disciplines - the way www.racingpost.com greyhounds monitors form across race meetings - Kohli's record over the years speaks to the consistency of a player who has always held himself against the very highest standards.
"That's quite a difficult one to answer. I'd probably say the 2003 World Cup in South Africa, Centurion. I would have loved to be batting with Sachin Paaji when he hit that shot off Shoaib and the way he batted that day. That really knocked me into the reality of, 'Woah, this is the level I want to get to.' And I would love to be at the non-striker's end," Kohli said. The honesty of the admission is telling: even a player who has scored thousands of international runs and led India across all formats openly acknowledges that Tendulkar's performances set the benchmark against which he measured himself.
The Innings That Stopped a Nation
The match itself remains one of the most discussed games in ODI World Cup history. Chasing 274 to beat Pakistan in a Super Six encounter, India were always going to need a fast start against a pace attack that included Shoaib Akhtar, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis - three of the most fearsome bowlers of that generation. Tendulkar provided exactly that, going after Akhtar from the outset and refusing to allow Pakistan any foothold in the contest.
The moment Kohli specifically referenced - a thunderous upper-cut over the fielder at point off Akhtar for six - has since entered the permanent vocabulary of cricket's great shots. The ball was bowled at pace, full of hostility, and Tendulkar met it with both timing and audacity. The consecutive boundaries that followed sent a clear message: India were not there to survive. They were there to win. Tendulkar fell just short of a century, caught for 98 off 75 deliveries, but the damage was already done. India chased the target down with six wickets to spare in one of the great high-stakes victories in the tournament's history.
A Tournament That Defined Tendulkar's Legacy
The 2003 World Cup, hosted by South Africa, Kenya and Zimbabwe, represented Tendulkar at the peak of his powers as an ODI batter. He finished as the tournament's leading run-scorer, accumulating 673 runs across 11 innings at a remarkable rate, with six half-centuries and one century to his name. No other batter came close to matching his influence on the competition as a whole.
India ultimately fell short in the final, losing to a dominant Australia side, but Tendulkar's individual campaign is routinely cited as one of the finest personal exhibitions in World Cup history. For a teenage Kohli watching from home, the tournament - and that innings against Pakistan in particular - clearly left a lasting imprint. The fact that he recalls it so vividly more than two decades later underlines just how formative those moments were in shaping the batter he would eventually become.
What the Reflection Says About Kohli
There is something genuinely illuminating about a player of Kohli's stature - a man with over 26,000 international runs across formats and a list of records that spans every condition and country - still talking about a cricketing idol with the wonder of someone who watched it all unfold on television as a teenager. It reflects both his respect for the game's history and his understanding that greatness is rarely built in isolation. Kohli has spoken about Tendulkar's influence at various points in his career, but the specificity of this answer - naming the ground, the bowler, the shot - speaks to a memory that has never faded. As he prepares to return to international cricket for the England series, it is a reminder that behind the fierce competitiveness lies a fan who still understands what it means to be moved by the sport.
