Aug 19 – On 18th August in 2008, a young Virat Kohli made his international debut against Sri Lanka in an ODI match. Virat had just etched his name in history books by leading India to the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup trophy and, like many U19 captains before him, had made a strong case for donning the Indian cap in the future, scoring 235 runs in six matches at an average of 47.00, with one century against West Indies in group stages.
Virat and his Delhi teammate Gautam Gambhir opened the batting against Sri Lanka, scoring only 12 runs. The teenager finished his first series with respectable stats, hitting 159 runs at an average of 31.80 in five matches, including his first fifty in the fifth ODI. While many thought Virat was bound for international success based on his talent and U19 triumph, the kind of success he would go on to accomplish in the years to come was beyond belief, even for his most ardent supporters.
Year after year, Kohli established himself as the epitome of consistency across all formats, becoming a member of the modern-day ‘Fab Four’ batting quartet alongside Australia’s Steve Smith, New Zealand’s Kane Williamson, and England’s Joe Root.
Kohli has played 111 Tests for India since then. After making his Test debut against the West Indies in 2011, he overcame the miseries of his first trip, in which he scored only 76 runs in five innings, to become one of the most visible champions of red-ball cricket. In 187 innings, he has scored 8,676 runs at an average of 49.29, with 29 hundreds, 29 fifties, and a top score of 254*.
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He is India’s fifth-highest Test scorer and 23rd all-time, trailing Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar (15,921 runs in 200 matches and 51 hundreds). He also has the fourth-highest Test century among Indians. Virat also has the most double hundreds (seven) of any Indian player.
Virat Kohli established a tremendous legacy as a Test skipper. He led India to 40 victories, 17 defeats, and 11 draws in 68 Tests. This equates to a win rate of 58.82 percent. Making India into a formidable home unit, helping them clinch a memorable Test match/series win in England, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Australia and West Indies, establishing a world-class pace bowling unit consisting of Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Siraj etc., are some of the big positives of his tenure as a skipper, which saw him lead India to five successive ICC World Test Championship maces from 2017-21.
ODIs are Virat’s preferred format. In 275 One-Day Internationals, he has scored 12,898 runs at an average of 57.32. In 265 innings, he has 46 centuries and 65 half-centuries, with a top score of 183.
He is India’s second-highest ODI run-getter, trailing only Sachin (18,426 runs in 463 matches, with 49 hundreds), and ranks fifth overall. Virat also has the second-most ODI hundreds and is aiming for a half-century of ODI tonnes. He has the greatest average among ODI players who have played at least 150 matches, which speaks volumes about his consistency and the value he places on his wicket.
He has the third-fastest 5,000 ODI run, the second-fastest 6,000 and 7,000 ODI runs, and the quickest 8,000, 9,000, 10,000, 11,000, and 12,000 ODI runs.
Virat has a strong track record as an ODI captain. He has led the squad in 95 matches, winning 65, losing 27, tying one, and two that ended in a tie, for a win percentage of 68.42.
He was a member of the team that won the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup and the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy, as well as the teams that reached the semifinals of the 2015 and 2019 Cricket World Cups and the final of the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy.
In 26 World Cup innings, he has scored 1,030 runs at an average of 46.81. He has two century and six fifties, with the highest score being 107. He has also played 13 ICC CT matches, amassing 529 runs at an average of 88.16 in 12 innings, including five half-centuries. His inconsistency in knockout matches, on the other hand, has earned him criticism.
In an era when the T20 format encourages attacking batting, Virat has successfully combined conservatism and situational attacking to become a T20I behemoth. He has scored 4,008 runs in 115 T20Is, with an average of 52.73 and a strike rate of 137.96. He has one century and 37 half-centuries to his name, with a best score of 122*.
He has the most runs, fifty-plus scores, and the greatest average in T20I cricket history. In T20Is, Virat has also won the most ‘Man of the Match’ (15) and ‘Man of the Series’ (seven) honours.
Virat Kohli is an all-time great in the ICC T20 World Cup. He is by far the most consistent player in tournament history, scoring 1,141 runs in 27 matches and 25 innings at an average of 81.50, a strike rate of 131.30, and 14 fifties. In the knockout stages of the event, he has scored half-centuries in all of his matches for India. Despite his valour, he has failed to win a T20 World Cup for India. He was even named ‘Player of the Tournament’ in the tournament’s 2014 and 2016 editions.
While chasing in T20 World Cups, he had extraordinary stats. Virat has 518 runs with a batting average of 518.00 in nine victorious chases! This is due to the fact that he was only dismissed once while chasing. In seven innings of chasing, he has scored half-centuries.
Overall, Virat has some incredible all-format statistics. With the introduction of T20I cricket and a heavier workload, Virat’s consistency in terms of runs and appearances across all formats makes him perhaps the best all-rounder of all time. He has scored 25,582 runs at an average of 53.63 in 501 matches. He has 76 centuries and 131 fifties in 559 innings, with a top score of 254*.
He is India’s second-highest run-scorer and the fifth-highest run-scorer in international cricket, pursuing Sachin Tendulkar’s records of 34,357 international runs, 664 international appearances, and 100 international hundreds. He holds the record for the most ‘Player of the Series’ accolades in history.
All of these earned him the ICC ‘Player of the Decade’ accolade from 2011 to 20.
