Kohli ends his Test career with an average under 50 but was among the very best at his peak
Shiva Jayaraman12-May-20254:15
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Virat Kohli finishes as the fourth-most prolific India batter in Test cricket with 9230 runs at an average of 46.85. His 30 hundreds are also the fourth highest by an India batter in Tests. Kohli’s seven double-hundreds are also the most by an India batter and the highest by any batter in Tests since his debut. Kohli is the only batter in Tests to score over 1000 runs at an average of 75 or more in two successive calendar years.Kohli’s best years in Test cricket started with the Australia tour in 2014-15, when he scored 692 runs in the series at an average of 86.50, including four hundreds. From that series to the end of Bangladesh tour of India in 2019-20, he amassed 5347 runs in Tests at an average of 63.65 and made 21 of his 30 centuries from just 90 innings.This prolific period for Kohli though was bookended by years that belie his stature as a premier Test batter of his era. Since the beginning of 2020, Kohli scored just over 2000 runs in 39 Test matches at a poor average of 30.72. Among 32 top-order batters with 50 or more innings in Tests in this period, Kohli’s average is the fourth lowest. These numbers have fallen dramatically in his last ten Tests: Kohli managed just 382 runs in 19 innings at an average of 22.47. More than a fourth of these runs came in a single in Perth last year where he made an unbeaten 100.
Kohli’s start to his career wasn’t as bad and was acceptable, if not spectacular. In his first 24 Tests before the England tour in 2014, he made 1721 runs at an average of 46.51 and hit six hundreds with a highest of 119. However, in the series in England, his indecisive footwork against the moving ball in English conditions saw him fall cheaply time and again. Kohli could score all of 134 runs in ten innings in the series. Despite this, Martin Crowe would identify him as one of the batters to watch out for in the future – one among the ‘fab four’.And Crowe would be proven right. From the beginning of the 2014-15 season to end of calendar year 2019, Kohli’s 5347 runs in Tests were only surpassed by Steven Smith and Joe Root – two of the other three batters in the fab four. Smith was the only batter to average higher than Kohli during that period among 72 batters to score 1000 or more runs.Kohli was at his absolute peak in the 18-month period between the 2016 and the 2018-19 seasons. His first double-hundred in Tests came against West Indies in North Sound in July 2016. By the end of 2017 he would add five more to that number in his next 33 innings, making it the second-most prolific run of 34 Test innings in terms of double-hundreds after Don Bradman’s. Bradman had a run of 34 innings beginning with his 254 at the Lord’s in the 1930 Ashes, when he racked up eight double-centuries in 34 innings.Getty ImagesThis was the period when Kohli was arguably the best Test batter. No one scored more runs than him and no one with at least 250 runs averaged higher than him in this period. Kohli scored more runs and averaged higher than the other three batters in the fab four.
In fact, Kohli’s most prolific run of 50 Test innings rubs shoulders with the very best in Test cricket. From the Eden Gardens Test against New Zealand in 2016-17 to the Boxing Day Tests in Melbourne in 2018-19, Kohli made 3304 runs at an average of 71.93 in 50 innings. Only six other batters have scored more runs in a stretch of 50 innings in Tests. Not surprisingly, Bradman leads this bunch with over 5000 runs that he scored between 1930 and 1946. The others above in this list are Viv Richards, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Brian Lara and and Ricky Ponting.ESPNcricinfo LtdKohli was more successful at home than away with the bat. He scored 4336 runs at an average of 55.58 in 55 Tests in India. In away Tests (excluding the two World Test Championship finals) he scored 4774 runs at an average of 41.51. However, that middling average doesn’t mean Kohli didn’t have his highs in away Tests. In the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in 2014-15, he made 692 runs at an average of 86.50. Among India batters, only Gavaskar has scored more runs in an away series than Kohli in that series. Kohli’s 692 runs are also the fifth highest by an visiting batter in a series in Australia.After his disastrous first tour to England in 2014, he returned to the country in 2018 to score 593 runs at an average of 59.30, including two hundred and three fifties in ten innings. These are the second-highest runs scored by an India batter in a series in England. Only Rahul Dravid’s tally of 602 from just six innings in the 2002 series is higher.In fact, these two tours make him one of the only two visiting batters to score over 500 runs at an average of 50 or more in a series in both England and Australia, Dravid being the other batter with such a distinction.ESPNcricinfo LtdKohli is among the most prolific visiting batters in Tests in South Africa too since its readmission to Test cricket. His 891 runs scored across four series at an average of 49.50 are the fourth highest by any visiting batter in that country since 1992. Only Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting and Stephen Fleming scored higher than Kohli, but all of them averaged lower than him.While there are visiting batters who averaged higher than Kohli in South Africa, Kohli often had to negotiate tough pitches – like the ones in Johannesberg in 2017-18 and Centurion in 2023-24. He also often had to bat without support from the other India batters against the South Africa pacers who seemed to get more from the pitches than their India counterparts did. That reflected in the average of India batters: in innings when Kohli batted, the other India batters averaged just 18.30 per dismissal. The ratio of Kohli’s average of 2.70 to the other batters in the team is the highest for any visiting batter with at least ten innings in South Africa since 1992.
As Test captain, Kohli was one of the most prolific batters in the format, scoring 5864 runs at an average of 54.80. It helped that his captaincy stint largely coincided with his best years with the bat in Test cricket. While his runs are the fourth highest by a captain, his 20 centuries while leading India are surpassed only Graeme Smith who scored 25 hundreds as a Test captain.In matches that he led India, Kohli contributed 16.45 percent of India’s bat runs. Among 18 captains to have led in 50 or matches, Kohli’s contribution is second highest after Root’s 16.67 percent. No other captain has contributed more than 15 percent to their team’s totals among the others.
However, Kohli’s biggest contribution as a captain in Tests was arguably his eagerness to build an attack that could take 20 wickets in all conditions, by putting together a pace pack that could win matches on its own. India always had spinners who could win Tests in helpful conditions, but it was under Kohli’s captaincy that fast bowlers thrived. Under Kohli as captain, India’s fast bowlers took 591 wickets at an average of 26.00 and strike rate of 51.84. Among those who led in 50 or more Tests, the pacers’ strike rate under Kohli of 51.39 ranks second only to Viv Richards’ pace attack of the 80s.ESPNcricinfo LtdWhile there could be debate on where Kohli stands among the echelons of the best batters India has seen, with 40 wins in 68 Tests, he will indisputably sign off as the most successful India captain ever, and also among all captains in the last decade and a half.