"Big games equal big names": Ponting hails Virat Kohli

Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting hailed Team India stalwart Virat Kohli by calling him the best ODI player he has ever seenThe Champions Trophy 2025 match against Pakistan highlighted Virat Kohlis carefully crafted century He not only helped India secure victory over their archrivals but also achieved several milestones Virat Kohli surpassed Ricky Ponting for becoming the thirdhighest runscorer in international cricket The century against Pakistan also marked his firstever ton in the Champions TrophySpeaking on The ICC Review Ponting lauded Kohlis ability to produce clutch knocks in crucial moments and for breaking a plethora of records on his wayI have always said big games equal big names You need your big names to stand up in those big moments and no bigger game for India than a game against Pakistan the ICC Hall of Famer said as quoted by ICCYour reputation is forged in what you do in the biggest contests on the international stage So it is no surprise to me that that has happened he added describing Kohlis unbeaten 100 off 111 balls as a testament to his temperament and ability to deliver in crucial situationsPonting drew parallels between the batting stalwarts clutch knock in Melbourne at the ICC Mens T20 World Cup 2022 against the same opponent that steered India to a win to his brilliance in DubaiYeah as you say 2022 and now he stood up against the team that he would probably steel himself the most to play against Ricky Ponting saidAlso ReadRain leads to no result in RawalpindiAnd no bigger moment than last night when Pakistan had batted first on a tricky wicket It needed someone at the top of the order to play a matchwinning innings like that And once again it was Kohli to get the job doneOpting to bat first Pakistan posted 241 in 494 overs a total that seemed competitive but ultimately fell short against Indias batting prowessPakistan had several batters who got starts but failed to convert them into bigger scores something Ponting pointed out as a key shortfallSaud Shakeel 62 Mohammad Rizwan 46 and Khushdil Shah 38 all contributed but none of them played a defining innings for the hostsYou look at the two scorecards its one Virat making a 100 and lots of Pakistan starts without anyone going on and making a big score Ponting notedI have said forever in any format of the game a 50 or a halfcentury never wins you or your team anything You have to get big scores And so the individual big scores were not there but the big partnerships were not there eitherExperienced duo Kuldeep Yadav 340 and Hardik Pandya 231 were instrumental for India in restricting Pakistan ensuring that they couldnt set a more daunting targetChasing 242 India lost early wickets but Kohli anchored the innings with composure and precisionForming a crucial partnership with Shreyas Iyer 56 he guided India home with several welltimed strokes and controlled aggressionRicky Ponting who himself is among the leading ODI runscorers hailed Virat Kohlis consistency and greatness During his innings he achieved the milestone of completing 14000 runs in ODIs and is now only behind Sachin Tendulkar and Kumar SangakkaraHe has obviously been a champion player for a long long time And particularly in the whiteball formats where he is been an unbelievably good 50over player Ponting saidI do not think Ive ever seen a better 50over player than Virat Kohli Now that he has gone past me and only two ahead of him I am sure he would want to give himself the best chance to be remembered as the alltime leading run scorer in the gameAs long as the hunger is there obviously physicalwise he is probably as fit as he has ever been and works exceptionally hard on that side of his game he addedVirat Kohli is just 149 runs shy from surpassing Sangakkara In comparison to Tendulkar Kohli is 4000 shortIt is crazy when you think about it is not it Just how good Virats been over such a long period of time yet he is still 4000 runs behind Sachin It just goes to show how good Sachin was but also his longevity in the game Ponting saidBut with someone like Virat you never write him off If the hungers still there then I am never going to write him offMeanwhile Pakistans campaign is now over after backtoback losses at the tournamentPonting questioned whether Pakistan were maximising the potential of their key players particularly Babar Azam and Mohammad RizwanThey have not been able to give their best back to their team Those two guys had to stand up they had to make big runs and they have not been able to do it in the first couple of games and that might be the reason why Pakistan do not make it through to the semifinals Ponting saidWith ANI Inputs