COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Stats analysis: Where does Kohli stand on the list of ODI greats?

by Deepu Narayanan • Last updated on

Kohli looks set to break most of the records in the 50-over format © Getty

The first of the three ODIs againstNew Zealand at the Wankhede will mark a special occasion for the Indian captain Virat Kohli. He will be playing his 200th ODI for India. He has come a long way from the chubby-cheeked 19-year-old who made his international debut in August 2008 on the back of winning the Under-19 World Cup that year to being one of the best batsmen to ever play the format.

A decade-long career witnessed him winning both the World Cup and Champions Trophy as well as scaling peaks unheard and unthought of before. For the starters, he is head and shoulders ahead of the rest of the pack after 199 ODIs in his career. He has more runs than anyone - 8767 - next best being AB de Villiers with 8520 runs. His 30 hundreds are seven more than the next placed de Villiers after 199 ODIs. However, it's worth mentioning Hashim Amla has 26 centuries from 158 games. His runs have come at an average of 55.14, marginally ahead of Michael Bevan's 54.80 at the same point of his career. He has scored 19 hundreds in run chases which is more than anyone else.

Where does Kohli stand among all-time ODI greats?

It is always an interesting exercise to compare players of different periods and different eras to find out the best of the lot. For this purpose, a parameter called Impact Factor is used which is calculated by multiplying rune scored per innings and strike rate divided by 100. Runs per index is preferred over batting average to negate the influence of not outs.

Among the 184 players who batted at least 100 times in ODI cricket, de Villiers unsurprisingly comes out on top with a score of 44.82 followed by teammate Amla with 42.48. Amla has the best runs-per-innings ratio of 47.62 followed by Kohli's 45.90. However, de Villiers pips both of them by the virtue of his superior strike rate. The only other player (barring Amla and de Villiers) with a 40-plus score in terms of Impact Factor is Kohli at 41.99, testifying his status as one of the all-time ODI greats.

Players with the highest Impact Factor score

Player Inngs Runs Ave SR RPI IF AB de Villiers 214 9495 54.26 101.02 44.37 44.82 Hashim Amla 155 7381 51.26 89.21 47.62 42.48 Virat Kohli 191 8767 55.14 91.48 45.90 41.99 Viv Richards 167 6721 47.00 90.29 40.25 36.34 K Williamson 108 4605 46.99 84.2 42.64 35.90 V Sehwag 245 8273 35.06 104.47 33.77 35.28 S Tendulkar 452 18426 44.83 86.14 40.77 35.12

What is in store after 200 ODIs?

Kohli has had a stellar run in his career so far but the question is how long will he be able to sustain it? Looking at the numbers, among the top ten run scorers after their 200th ODI, only Ricky Ponting and Jacques Kallis had a dip in their career averages. The fall was steeper for Kallis than Ponting. Kallis's average dipped from 45.83 in his first 200 ODIs to 42.56 in his last 128.

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The picture above vindicates the fact that batsmen get wiser with experience. The picture depicts the top 16 run-getters among specialist batsmen pre and post their 200th ODI - all barring four had an increase [in terms of average] in comparison to their first 200 ODIs. Kumar Sangakkara had the highest increase - from 36.08 to 47.24, with 19 of his 25 ODI hundreds coming in the second half of his career. There could have been various factors leading to the upward curve, but the general argument that players wear off as they get older doesn't hold much water.

Kohli is almost 29, a phase which is generally considered to be the peak for a batsman. Kohli's purple patch in ODIs started with the Australian tour in early 2016 and since then he has scored a whopping 1936 runs from 33 innings at a Bradmanesque average of 80.67 with seven centuries and 11 half-centuries. The added responsibility of captaincy has not proved detrimental to his form but it has got better if any.

By taking into consideration the same 16 batsmen from the above analysis and comparing their numbers post and pre-30 also indicates the fact that most players age like fine wine, the older they get, the better they become. 13 out of the 16 players improved their average after turning 30. The notable exceptions are Sourav Ganguly and Brian Lara, both of whom had a dip in form after playing their 200th ODI as well as after turning 30. The player with the highest dip in form after turning 30 is Yuvraj Singh - 37.62 to 27.08. But he has played only 30 matches - after recovering from cancer.

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Tendulkar vs Kohli

First 200 ODIs ODIs - 201 to career end 100s ODIs 100s 100s 100s ODIs 100s 100s 100s 200 263 199

Before turning 30 After turning 30 100s ODIs 100s 100s 100s ODIs 100s 100s 100s 15 314 15 15 15 149 15 15 15 199

The player with whom Kohli has been compared most often is his idol Sachin Tendulkar. Tendulkar had a more sedate start to his ODI career, averaging only 41.97 after his first 200 games in comparison to Kohli's 55.14 (199). It took Tendulkar 76 innings to register his maiden ODI hundred while Kohli had eight at the same point of time in his career. However, Tendulkar had already finished two-thirds of his career by the time he aged 30. Tendulkar played 314 matches and Kohli has 199. He still has a year and a bit to go before he touches 30.

Tendulkar played in much stronger teams post-30, which could have been one of the factors that prolonged his already illustrious career. The latter half of his career saw the likes of Yuvraj and Virender Sehwag emerging as match winners. MS Dhoni and Suresh Raina too arrived during this period and it was no more the one-man show - which used to be the case for most of the 1990s.

In comparison, Kohli has been carrying the Indian batting line-up along with his deputy Rohit Sharma for a while now. Since the World Cup 2015, India has won 19 out of the 33 ODIs which featured both of them. As many as 16 of those had either one or both compiling fifty-plus scores. The duo has made the Indian batting look more solid than it is. Yuvraj and Raina have faded away while MS Dhoni is a pale shadow of his former self. The management is still figuring out who is the ideal number four among KL Rahul, Manish Pandey and Dinesh Karthik. In this scenario, things aren't looking too rosy for Kohli when it comes to sharing the workload if age catches up on him.

Going by his current numbers, it would take more than another set of 200 matches for Kohli to go past Tendulkar's tally of 18426 ODI runs. However, it is more likely that he will end up as the leading century-maker in 50-over cricket given that he scores one every 6.36 innings - one of the best innings-per-hundred ratios, the game has ever seen. Kohli has achieved things previously unheard and unthought of in the first half of his career and it would be fair to assume that he would sit on top of the most coveted batting records in this format once he finally hangs up his boots.

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