50 tons do not seem a long journey for Kohli

Kohli’s status in world cricket grew further when he smashed his 18th Test hundred and 50th international ton on the final day of the first Test against Sri Lanka, but the skipper said that records are just numbers for him.

“It (50 international hundreds) feels good. It hasn’t been a long journey yet,” Kohli said at the postmatch presentation ceremony after the first Test between India and Sri Lanka ended in a draw.

“If I can step up and perform, that will give me more pleasure than thinking of the number of hundreds I have. That will remain the mindset till I play this game,” he added.

Asked about India’s mindset going into the final session, Kohli said he was pleased with the character shown by his team to make the match interesting despite losing considerable amount of play due to rain. 

“It was important to make something out of the game with whatever time we had. Conditions changed drastically over the five days. We had to show character, having been on the backfoot on day one and day two,” he said. 

“The team showed a lot of character. We didn’t look at batting collapse. We believed in our strengths. If you didn’t have intent on this wicket, it would’ve been difficult to survive. All in all, we’re proud of how we finished,” said Kohli.