About a week a before the India-England series was supposed to begin, England cricket legend Kevin Pietersen was quoted, by The Cricketer as saying, “(Joe) Root has good numbers, but it’s unfair to even compare Joe with Virat because his numbers are just phenomenal”. Just like 2012 when England last visited India, this series is being dominated by talk of spin, but we all still remember that memorable innings from KP in Nagpur in 2012 which seized the initiative from India in the last series. The big question remains- which one out of Root and Kohli is going to give us that innings this time?

Comparing the records of Joe Root and Virat Kohli across One-Day Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals, there is only one winner. With averages of 53 and 58 along with 26 ODI centuries, Virat overshadows Root’s averages of 46 and 37.5 and eight ODI centuries. Yes, Root has played around 100 matches less than Virat, but even if we extrapolate his numbers to match the innings played by Virat, Root would have 18 centuries (10 less than Virat).

Root leads on face value in Tests

However, when we look at Tests, considered the ultimate barometer by most cricket experts, the comparison makes for far more interesting reading.

At the overall level, although Kohli has a higher number of centuries, Root has a higher batting average, better top score, more runs and half centuries (33 as compared to 25). If we analyse their records both home and away, Joe Root clearly prefers batting at home highlighted between the huge difference in his home/away averages – 59 and 45.5 respectively.

Kohli is more consistent across venues and there is a small difference between these numbers – a home average of 47 and 45 away. It is interesting to note that even though Root has only two away centuries, his away average is still higher than Kohli’s. So, was KP incorrect in his assessment? On face value, it certainly looks so. But it seems like the legend did some did some deep data investigation himself!

Let’s take a look at the data

If we look at the numbers from matches excluding Bangladesh and West Indies, Kohli has higher averages against Australia and New Zealand whereas Root has higher averages against South Africa and Sri Lanka. A point to be noted is that the difference in averages when Kohli’s average is higher is much larger as when Root’s averages are higher. If anything, this provides us with evidence explaining why Kohli’s average should be higher than Root’s!

What are we missing out on? Is it the records from matches against the other nations? Is it because we have excluded Root’s scores against Pakistan against whom he averages close to 67 and has his highest score of 254? In fact, it is something far more interesting.

The anomaly

There is one major outlier or anomaly which this series is looking to correct, and that is the record of these two nations against each other. Kohli averages a paltry 20 in 17 innings against England, and Root averages 102 against India in nine innings against India. If you take away these numbers from their overall records, the averages interchange and Kohli has a far better record than Root.

Another thing to keep in mind is the form of both these batsmen in 2016. Both have registered their highest scores this calendar year but one man is clearly in better form. Virat Kohli is looking in imperious touch. He is averaging 56 this year and Root is averaging 49 but it is the Indian captain’s conversion rate that makes his wicket invaluable. Although he boasts of a spectacular conversion rate, this year has been unbelievable. Whenever he has gone past 50, not only has he gone on to score a century, but he has gone on to make a double century, thus making his wicket doubly prized.

Virat has a score to settle

The official Twitter hashtag for this series is #scoretosettle but there are many things this series is looking to correct. Players admit they do not play for individual records, but Kohli will be all too aware of his dismal record against the English and I believe that in this series this outlier will get corrected and the respective Test records will get evened out.

(Jayant is currently working as a Data Scientist and constantly finds himself trying to explain statistical quirks in sports)