Why Did Sunil Gavaskar Refuse To Compare Virat Kohli With Sachin Tendulkar?

Sunil Gavaskar refused to compare Virat Kohli's career with Sachin Tendulkar's. Kohli, who broke Tendulkar’s record of 49 centuries in ODIs in the last ODI World Cup in 2023, has 51 centuries in the format and 82 centuries overall. The 36-year-old is roughly seven thousand runs behind Tendulkar’s 34,357 runs in international cricket. 

When asked by host Fakhr-e-Alam of the show “Dressing Room” how he would rate Kohli in comparison to Tendulkar, Gavaskar refused to do so and said that it’s a very subcontinent thing to compare two players from different eras.

"I will never compare eras because, you know, playing conditions are different, the pitches are different, the opposition is different,” Gavaskar said.

“So it is very difficult to compare people. But that is only a weakness if I might call it a weakness, amongst the subcontinent — our comparisons."

Gavaskar remarked that no one from countries like Australia makes these comparisons between former and current cricketers. 

"We will always compare players. Have you ever seen anybody asking 'is Ricky Ponting a better player than Gregg Chappell? Nobody. Just accept the current players as they are. There is no comparison. It only happens in the subcontinent. We are all the time comparing."