Virat Kohli has been taking giant strides in international cricket. Abhishek Mukherjee looks at an almost unnoticed record for the man who has been hailed as one of the potential all-time greats by several gurus.
There are orthodox cricket pundits who are not impressed with Virat Kohli’s on-field antics. This columnist, a traditionalist to the core, especially when it comes to cricket, had raised an eyebrow when news of his discipline used to come in. With time, scepticism gave way to awe as Kohli took gigantic strides across all formats.
To start with, Kohli has the highest batting average among all batsmen with 500 Twenty20 International (T20I) runs, significantly ahead of Aaron Finch, the next man on the list:
Highest T20I averages (500 runs)
R
Ave
SR
4s
6s
Virat Kohli
906
45.3
130
96
19
Aaron Finch
660
41.25
156.8
70
30
Michael Hussey
721
37.94
136.3
58
25
Kevin Pietersen
1,176
37.93
141.5
119
32
Misbah-ul-Haq
788
37.52
110.2
45
26
Having already dominated Tests and One-Day Internationals (ODIs), Kohli has now taken to T20Is. In fact, at the time of writing this article, Kohli is the only man to be averaging over 45 in all three formats of the sport. Since it is evident from the above table that nobody barring Kohli has averaged over 45 in T20Is, let us lower the bar to 250 runs.
35+ averages in all three formats (250 runs in all formats)
Tests
ODIs
T20Is
R
Ave
R
Ave
R
Ave
Andrew Symonds
1,462
40.61
5,088
39.75
337
48.14
Jacques Kallis
13,289
55.37
11,574
44.86
666
35.05
Kevin Pietersen
8,181
47.28
4,440
40.73
1,176
37.93
Matthew Hayden
8,625
50.73
6,133
43.8
308
51.33
Michael Hussey
6,235
51.52
5,442
48.15
721
37.94
Misbah-ul-Haq
3,218
48.75
4,527
44.38
788
37.52
Virat Kohli
1,721
46.51
5,634
52.16
906
45.3
Only seven men have averaged over 35 and scored 250 in all three formats; of them, Mathew Hayden has crossed the forty-mark in all, but Kohli has gone a notch ahead, going past the 45-mark in all formats.
This versatile quality has also an impact on the Reliance ICC Player Rankings, making Kohli the only batsman to rank in the top ten across formats:
Tests
ODIs
T20Is
Rank
Rating
Rank
Rating
Rank
Rating
AB de Villiers
1
922
Virat Kohli
1
881
Aaron Finch
1
892
Kumar Sangakkara
2
879
AB de Villiers
2
872
Virat Kohli
2
889
Shivnarine Chanderpaul
3
876
George Bailey
3
856
Alex Hales
3
834
Hashim Amla
4
873
Hashim Amla
4
840
Brendon McCullum
4
777
David Warner
5
871
Kumar Sangakkara
5
833
Kusal Perera
5
725
Ross Taylor
6
842
MS Dhoni
6
783
Faf du Plessis
6
714
Misbah-ul-Haq
7
824
Jonathan Trott
7
725
JP Duminy
7
698
Cheteshwar Pujara
8
819
Shikhar Dhawan
8
723
Ahmed Shehzad
8
684
Michael Clarke
9
818
Tillakaratne Dilshan
9
717
David Warner
9
681
Virat Kohli
10
784
Misbah-ul-Haq
10
715
Suresh Raina
10
679
As is evident, though there are five men (de Villiers, Sangakkara, Amla, Warner, and Misbah) who appear on two of the three lists, Kohli is the only one to feature on all three.
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