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Virat Kohli has finally ended his century drought across formats with his maiden ton in the T20I format. Kohli breached the three figures in the shortest format of the game from 53 deliveries in the penultimate over of the dead rubber Asia Cup 2022 Super 4 clash against Afghanistan.
The 33-year-old scored his first international century after a long break of two years, nine months and 16 days. He reached his century with a six off Fareed Ahmad Malik. Kohli's 70th international century came in November 2019 against Bangladesh in the pink-ball Test.
Kohli remained unbeaten for 122 from 61 deliveries including 12 fours and one six. Kohli broke Rohit Sharma's record of highest T20I individual score for India. Rohit had scored 118 against Sri Lanka in December 2017.
He also broke Suryakumar's T20I record. The former Indian skipper became the oldest (33 years and 307 days) Indian batter to score a T20I hundred. In addition, he equalled former Australian captain's tally of 71 international centuries. Now, he is only behind legendary Sachin Tendulkar who has 100 centuries in international cricket.
“It was indeed (the celebrations was worth a 1000 words). Very blessed, very grateful right now. The last two and half years has taught me a lot, I am going to turn 34 in November, so the celebrations are for the past. I have put a lot of things into perspective. I was a bit shocked as this was the format I least expected for a century to come anytime soon. It is all God's blessing, I have been working hard and this was just a moment which was very special for me and the team as well. It was an accumulation of a lot of things,” Kohli told broadcasters after his innings.
“As I said, since I came back into the team, the team has been open, welcoming, helpful and given me space to work on my game. I know there was lot of stuff going on on the outside but they really kept my perspective right and I kissed my ring in the celebrations as well, you see me standing like this right now and all the things being put in perspective has been done by one person, who stood by me through all these difficult times that is Anushka. This hundred is specially dedicated to her and our little daughter Vamika as well. When you have someone next to you, having conversations, putting the things in right perspective like I have been and Anushka has been by my side through these times, time away from the game has taught me a lot of things,” he added.
