Kohli at 100: The leader with a run gluttony
Virat Kohli will becomes only the 12th Indian player to play 100 Test matches. İAFP
Virat Kohli has scaled many peaks in his illustrious cricketing career so far and will find himself in elite company on Friday (March 4) at the PCA Stadium in Mohali when he'l become only the 12th Indian and 71st player overall to feature in 100 Test matches.
It is a significant achievement for an all-format cricketer whose career has run in its entirety through the T20 era. Unlike the other Indian batting greats like Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, or even Rahul Dravid, Kohli took the scenic route to cement his spot in India's Test XI. Having made his ODI debut in 2008, he first game in the whites came nearly three years later in the Caribbean when Tendulkar opted to skip the tour. By then Kohli had established himself as the side's premier batsman in the 50-over format even as a breakthrough in the red-ball team wasn't forthcoming.
The initiation in red ball format was not all that rosy and Kohli was dropped after a dismal show in his maiden series. But he came on to his own later in the year in a disastrous tour Down Under where he was the sole visiting batsmen to breach the three figure mark. In what was a transition phase for Indian cricket in the longest format, Kohli emerged as the side's big hope in the batting department and the heir to the coveted No.4 spot in the line-up.
Between the two tours to Australia in 2011/12 and 2014/15, India's results in red-ball cricket nosedived with only New Zealand, Bangladesh, and Zimbabwe returning a worse win percentage. Kohli in this period developed further, scoring 2356 runs at 49.08 with ten hundreds, seven of them away - the most from a batsman across all teams. He was elevated as the skipper in Tests at the start of 2015 and after a year in the job he hit his peak as a batsman.
Though the scope of this piece limits to his journey in Test cricket, it is impossible not to touch upon his exploits concurrently in the two other formats of the game. Between 2016 and 2019, he hit more runs and hundreds than any player across formats in international cricket. He averaged 66.79 in Tests, 80.98 in ODIs (at a SR of 99.27), 59.88 in T20Is (SR 151.71) and 52.59 across all T20s (SR 141.94). We are at a phase of the game where the formats are diverging ever so fast, such a peak simultaneously across the formats would be next to impossible to witness in the coming times.
The Kohli peak: 2016-2019
Format Mat Inngs Runs Avg SR 100s/50s
Tests 43 69 4208 66.79 61.88 16/10
ODIs 76 75 4778 80.98 99.27 20/21
T20Is 45 42 1617 59.88 141.71 0/15
All T20s 99 96 3892 52.59 141.94 5/32
In Tests alone, only Joe Root scored more runs than Kohli in this four year phase (34 more runs in 29 more innings) and only Steven Smith (68.73) averaged more than Kohli's 66.79. Kohli's 16 hundreds - six of them away - was three more than the next best.
Kohli's Test exploits in 2018, a year which kickstarted the renaissance in pace bowling in red ball cricket, is noteworthy. He was the leading run-getter in the year with 1322 runs at 55.08 with five hundreds, four of these coming in the 11 Tests he played in South Africa, England, and Australia. (Top six batsmen cumulatively averaged 31.48 in 2018, the lowest in a calendar year since 1957).
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The second half of this aforementioned peak was punctuated by his voracious appetite to bat big. Of his first 11 hundreds, the 169 in Melbourne was his only 150+ score. In his first Test in 2016, he hit his maiden double hundred (across all first class cricket). Nine of his his next 16 hundreds were 150+ scores, seven of them double centuries. In the process he also making him the only captain to hit more than five double centuries. In 2016-17 went on to become the first player to hit double hundreds in four successive series.
12 of Kohli's Test 100s have come in SENA & West Indies.
12 of Kohli's Test 100s have come in SENA & West Indies. İGetty
One of Asia's best overseas
The litmus Test for any Asian batter among fans and critics is how he fares in alien conditions away from home. Kohli has played nearly half of his career Tests outside Asia - 48 out of 99 - and has averaged 43.04, which in fact fell from 48.07 at the end of 2018 following his two leanest years since the beginning of 2020. Only the Indian trio of Tendulkar (18), Gavaskar (15) and Dravid (13) have scored more Test centuries in SENA countries and West Indies than Kohli's 12.
Most hundreds in SENA & WI among Asian batters
Player Mat Inngs Runs Avg 100s 50s HS
S Tendulkar 73 128 6007 50.9 18 28 241*
S Gavaskar 46 81 3868 51.57 15 15 221
R Dravid 63 117 5420 53.13 13 28 233
V Kohli 48 89 3788 43.04 12 15 200
Javed Miandad 48 78 3340 46.38 9 15 271
Asif Iqbal 31 54 1977 39.54 8 3 175
Inzamam-ul-Haq 44 78 3137 44.18 8 18 148
VVS Laxman 57 102 3856 42.37 7 25 178
Mohd Yousuf 33 62 2647 44.11 7 11 203
KC Sangakkara 34 66 2764 44.58 7 16 203
Champion of conversion
Making the starts count is one of the key aspects of Test match batting and Kohli has been excellent at this. Of the 55 times Kohli has reached fifty he's gone past the three-figure mark every second time (27 hundreds out of 49 fifty-plus scores at the time of his last century in November 2019). Among those with at least 40 scores of fifty or more in Test career, Kohli's conversion rate of 49.09% is the sixth best.
Best conversion rate in Test cricket (40+ scores of 50 or more)
Player Inngs 50+ scores 100s Conversion %
D Bradman 80 42 29 69.05
Mohd Azharuddin 147 43 22 51.16
M Clarke 198 55 28 50.91
M Hayden 184 59 30 50.85
Younis Khan 213 67 34 50.75
V Kohli 168 55 27 49.09
W Hammond 140 46 22 47.83
Aravinda de Silva 159 42 20 47.62
N Harvey 137 45 21 46.67
G Sobers 160 56 26 46.43
The (C) next to his name
Having led India in more than two-thirds of his Tests, the captaincy aspect of his career deserves due weightage. He called curtains to his tenure earlier in the year and finished as India's most successful captain in the format. Only Graeme Smith (53 wins), Ricky Ponting (48) and Steve Waugh (41) have led their teams to more Test wins than Kohli. Among those who led in at least 25 Tests, Kohli's win% of 58.82 is only behind that of Steve Waugh's (71.93%) and Ponting's (62.34).
Kohli led India to 11 Test wins in SENA and West Indies, five more than any other Asian captain in those parts of the world. He led India to their maiden series win in Australia in 2018/19, multiple series win in West Indies and Sri Lanka and is currently sitting on a 2-1 lead in England with a Test to be played later this year. All this is in addition to India's unprecedented success at home - no home series lost - during his tenure. The two disappointments under Kohli's captaincy era in red ball cricket would be missing out on a maiden series win for India on South African soil and the defeat in the final of WTC to New Zealand after dominating the first edition.
Unlike India's other red-ball greats whose batting returns dwindled under the burden of captaincy, Kohli's batting form shot through the roof after taking over as captain. He averaged 54.80 as captain compared to 41.13 when not in charge. He sits on fourth in the list of leading run-getters as captain and his tally of 20 hundreds while in charge is surpassed only by Graeme Smith's 25.
Most runs as Test captain
Captain Mat Runs Avg 100s Wins Win %
G Smith 109 8659 47.84 25 53 48.62
A Border 93 6623 50.95 15 32 34.41
R Ponting 77 6542 51.51 19 48 62.34
V Kohli 68 5864 54.80 20 40 58.82
C Lloyd 74 5233 51.30 14 36 48.65
S Fleming 80 5156 40.60 8 28 35.00
A second wind?
In 15 Tests since the start of 2020, Kohli has averaged a paltry 28.14 which has plummeted his career average - which was touching 55 - to just a few points above the coveted 50-mark. With the burden of leading the side now released from his shoulders, Kohli will be taking a fresh guard on Friday in Mohali in his landmark Test. Barring a solitary Test in England later this year, much of India's scheduled Tests in the immediate horizon will be played in the sub-continent which gives him a chance at a second wind.
Like Tendulkar, who gave up captaincy when he was just 27 to focus on his batting which reaped him rich dividends, Kohli will be hoping for much of the same. Tendulkar played more than a century of Tests since his final one leading India and scaled many peaks in the second half of his career. Kohli may not have as much gas left in the tank as Tendulkar did, but he will be hoping for a late career resurgence and to write the final chapter of his career in golden letters. Only time will tell if he can hit another high or fade away like several other legends. For the moment, however, it is time to celebrate a remarkable career reaching a major landmark.
