Sachin Tendulkar celebrates his 45th birthday on Tuesday and has promised Virat Kohli that he will share a champagne bottle with the India captain if he goes on to break his record of 49 centuries in ODIs.

Kohli is going like a fast train, especially over the last four years, and already has 35 ODI hundreds under his belt, which leaves him 15 away from becoming the first batsman to complete a half-century of centuries in 50-over internationals.



"I won't send him champagne bottles. I will go and share a bottle with him if he breaks my record," Tendulkar said at a book launch on the eve of his birth anniversary.

Last year, Kohli left behind batting greats Ricky Ponting and Sanath Jayasuriya to scale up to No. 2 in the list of batsmen with most ODI hundreds. Ponting is now No. 3 with 30 centuries and Jayasuriya No. 4 with 28.

In all, Kohli has scored 9 ODI hundreds since the start of 2017.

Meanwhile, Virender Sehwag believes Kohli will go on to score 62 ODI centuries. But how the former India opener came up with that precise number is best known to him.

Responding to a fan's question on Twitter, Sehwag said Kohli will notch up 62 centuries in ODIs.

How many odi's centuries will virat be able to make at the end of his career ??? #AskViru virat kohli — Ashutosh Gupta (@iamashutoshg) February 16, 2018

Kohli has always been very vocal about the influence Tendulkar has had on his cricket career.

"I started playing cricket because of him. I got inspired to do things that he did for the country. I always visualised myself in those situations and I was lucky enough to be a part of the same changeroom (as him) when I was starting and he was still around," Kohli had said in an interview with cricket.com.au two years ago.

"He really helped me with little things that I could improve in my game. If he saw something he would come up to me himself and tell me, 'This is something you can work on', which is quite rare.

"You don't (often) have people of his stature come and talk to youngsters like that, pointing out things like that. So he always gave you confidence," Kohli went on to add.