After scoring his 30th century, Virat Kohli’s ascent to catching Sachin Tendulkar is fast becoming a reality.

The Indian skipper is now breathing rarefied air, becoming only the third player in One Day International history to have 30 centuries under his belt. Only former Australian captain, Ricky Ponting and Tendulkar possess the same enviable statistic.

Kohli’s ability to score quickly is what has made him so successful. At the same age as Tendulkar, he’s over 2,500 runs behind, but is scoring at a considerably quicker rate. If Kohli continues to remain healthy, he has a strong chance to come close to Tendulkar’s mammoth 18,426 career runs.

Unlike Tendulkar, who started as a lower order batsman in ODIs, the Indian captain had no trouble getting big scores early on his batting career. His first century in 2009 against Sri Lanka was in his 13th innings as opposed to Tendulkar who took 75 attempts before reaching triple digits in a match.

What’s truly fascinating about Kohli’s batting is his ability to score centuries at regular intervals. This was not prevalent in the early part of Tendulkar’s career.

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The master blaster scored his next 19 centuries over 181 innings roughly the same amount of time that Kohli took to score his 30 centuries.

Among the three men who have scored 30 centuries, Kohli is a clear outlier. He’s taken only 186 innings to achieve this feat and with an average of 55.75, no player in the modern games comes even close to matching him.

Even among six batsmen who’ve scored 25 or more centuries, only Hashim Amla comes close with an average of 50.25 from 153 innings. Amla, however is five years older than Kohli so doesn’t have age on his side.

At any rate, Kohli will only continue to dwarf his peers with his explosive batting, and there will be little to stop him from knocking Tendulkar off his pedestal.