Under the sweltering humidity of the Wankhede, Virat Kohli scored his 31st ODI century taking him past Ricky Ponting as the second highest scorer of individual centuries by a batsman.
Since his debut in 2008, the Indian captain has decimated oppositions and is on track to become one of the game’s greatest.
He’s an outlier even when you compare him to batsman at a similar stage of their careers. Among players who have scored greater than 2,000 runs no one can touch his average. The closest perhaps are Michael Bevan, AB de Villiers and MS Dhoni. The Australian and former Indian captain had a fewer chances to make an impact since they both batted lower down the order.
But his efficiency at that international level is incredible especially since his most prolific batting has come in the past 50 ODIs. Some of these have come with the burden of captaincy.
At the conclusion of his 200th ODI match against New Zealand, Kohli averaged 55.55 and is nearly past the 9,000 run mark. No other batsman at this stage of their career is even close to eclipsing him. He’s not just competing with run-of-the-mill batsman, but with the likes of Ricky Ponting, Sachin Tendulkar and Dhoni.
For some reason or the other many of the great batsman had slow starts to their careers. Sangakkara for one averaged little over 35 after 200 ODIs.
Perhaps the only player to rival Kohli’s rise is Bevan. It could be argued that Bevan faced tougher opposition. The Australian saw a gradual decline as time wore on. Dhoni’s average also has plateaued after a strong start.
Kohli, on the other hand, gets better. In his last 50 ODIs, he’s scored ten centuries and twelve half-centuries. In that period he was getting past the 50 run mark 44 per cent of the time.
It’s important to note that the Indian captain has played a significant majority of his matches at home and in some cases against weaker sides. But it would be unfair to say that Kohli can’t perform outside of the subcontinent.