Stumps & Bumps: Kohli's time is still now

Virat Kohli became the second batsman in history to reach 15,000 One Day International runs, achieving the milestone with an unbeaten century against the West Indies last week.

Widely hailed as the greatest ODI batter in history, Kohli will turn 39 years old during next year’s World Cup and having already stepped back from T20 Internationals following India's 2024 World Cup victory and then from Tests, he has signalled that the 2027 tournament will serve as the closer to his ODI career.

Kohli’s ODI statistics remain unmatched in modern cricket, with a total of 15,109 runs at an average of 58.78 and a total of 55 centuries, but the former Indian captain has declared he has unfinished business after the heartbreak of losing the final of the 2023 World Cup against Australia.

With a definitive finish line on his storied career, SEN Cricket's Bharat Sundaresan thinks that Kohli's final run as an active player will mirror that of John Cena who retired from wrestling with a farewell tour that spanned across 2025, with appearances across the United States as well as internationally in Europe, Australia and Saudi Arabia.

"When you speak about John Cena and his retirement tour, Kohli is just like John Cena in his final run. He looks as fit as he always did and he honestly could keep up with whoever they put him in the ring with. Whether it was Cody Rhodes or Randy Orton or CM Punk - the last two people of who were kind of his peers, but even many of the young wrestlers he got into the ring with like Dom Mysterio never made him look like, a legend who had just come back into the ring. He just looked like John Cena of old" said Sundaresan.

Cena's final run included a 17th World Championship breaking Ric Flair's record of 16 world titles, and joined an elite group of wrestlers who have won ten or more World Championships, like Triple H (14 world titles), Hulk Hogan (12 world titles), The Rock (11 world titles), and Randy Savage (10 world titles).

"Just like Cena, Virat Kohli walks back into this one day team and makes a 100 the way he has. He did it earlier this year as well against the New Zealanders on home soil, made a couple of hundreds in that series if I'm not mistaken. So that's what makes these guys so special. I mean, there are legends and then there's a Virat Kohli and a John Cena."

Kohli is still 3,317 runs shy of breaking Sachin Tendulkar's all-time ODI runs record - at 18,426 - but sits above Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara (14,234 runs), former Australian captain Ricky Ponting (13,704 runs) and Sanath Jayasuriya (13,430 runs)

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