Former Pakistan cricketer Wasim Akram took centre stage and backed Virat Kohli to break Sachin Tendulkar’s record in ODI run chases.
Star India batter Virat Kohli has been in excellent form in the ODI format. After a stellar knock against Pakistan in the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 group stage, Kohli went on to score another big knock against Australia in the 1st semi-final of the tournament.
It is worth noting that Kohli has often been deemed a master of run chases. Through his masterful innings against Australia, Kohli broke a plethora of records. He crossed the 8000-run mark in ODI run chases, second only to Sachin Tendulkar, who has 8720 runs in ODI run chases.
Seeing his recent performances, former Pakistan cricketer Wasim Akram took centre stage and backed Virat Kohli to surpass Tendulkar on the list and become the highest run getter in ODI chases. “Look at these all names with the highest run chasers. Sachin, Rohit, Jayasuriya and Kallis. There are the greats of the game and Kohli is definitely going to pass Sachin Tendulkar the way it looks like. Kohli’s average is only second to MS Dhoni. Dhoni got close to 100 and Kohli’s average is close to 90. That’s just phenomenal,” Akram said on the show ‘The Pavilion’.
Speaking of the game between Australia and India, the clash saw Australia come in to bat first. The Men in Yellow posted a total of 264 runs in the first innings of the game thanks to Steve Smith, Marnus Labuschagne, and Alex Carey. Analysing the game, Wasim Akram opined that Australia needed to post a total of 300 against India considering the inexperience in their lineup.
“Josh Hazelwood, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins could not come, two were injured and one did not come due to personal reasons. But Australia did not help their cause. Like Steve Smith said, if the score was 290-300, then they would have got a chance. These two wickets of Smith and (Glenn) Maxwell made them score a below-par score,” Akram said.
