Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting has backed Virat Kohli to break Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 100 International centuries. Kohli recently equaled Ponting’s tally of 71 International hundred when he scored a brilliant knock of 122 runs off just 61 balls against Afghanistan in the Asia Cup.

However, Kohli reached the three-digit mark in International cricket after a long gap of 1020 days. Kohli wasn’t able to convert his starts in the last couple of years but he was finally able to break the jinx.

Meanwhile, Sachin had scored 49 centuries in the ODI format whereas he amassed 51 hundred in the Test format.

“If you would have asked me three years ago, I’d have said yes,” Ponting told ICC. “But the fact that it has slowed down as much as it did, yeah, I still think that it is possible for him, there’s no doubt. I still think he has got a number of years ahead of him, but I guess to still be 30 (29) international hundreds behind, that’s a lot. That’s five or six Test hundreds a year maybe for the next three or four years. If you throw a couple of one-day ones, maybe the odd T20 ones on top of it,” he added.

Ponting added that he will never say never with Virat Kohli as he is well aware of the talisman’s hunger to score runs at the top level.

“Look, I’ll never say never with Virat, because you know once he gets on a bit of a roll, you know how hungry he is and how keen for success he is. I’ll never say never that’s for sure,” he added.

Kohli returning to form is a great sign for India ahead of the T20 World Cup. The linchpin scored 276 runs in five matches of the Asia Cup at an average of 92 and a strike rate of 147.59. Kohli will look to continue the good show against Australia in the three-match series.