Virat Kohli earns 'best' tag from a cricketing legend

Melbourne: Former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting believes Virat Kohli is the best batsman in the world as far as one-day Cricket is concerned, but he still has a long way to go to be regarded as the best in the longer format of the game.

On being asked about his views on the Indian 'run machine' being widely called as 'the best batsman in the world', Ponting said, "Yeah, he probably is. I thought he became the best in the business six or seven months ago. Since then, he has only taken his game to the next level."

Virat Kohli enjoyed a magnificent 2016 across all formats as he guided India to glorious Test series wins against West Indies, New Zealand and England and also took over as the new Indian skipper in limited over formats as well.

According to the former Aussie captain who led his team to two back to back World Cup victories, captaincy would help Kohli even further.

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He stated that it was too premature to call Virat the best ever to have played the game, though, he totally deserves the tag in one-day Cricket because of his figures. Kohli has scored 27 hundreds in 179 matches.

Ricky Ponting, who himself is regarded as one of the best batsmen ever, believes that Kohli (53 Tests) needs some more time to be counted in the league of greats like Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara and Jacques Kallis, who played 200, 131 and 166 Test matches, respectively.

He suggested Australian team, which is scheduled to tour India for a four-Test series from February 23 to March 29, to get Kohli out of his comfort zone if they want to have any chances of winning the series against a squad which is expert in creating momentum while playing at the home grounds.

Ponting stated that confrontations make Virat Kohli very aggressive which may turn vital for either of the teams in the match. He described Kohli very similar to him as he also wears his heart on his sleeves.