Indian skipper Virat Kohli has been included in the list of five Cricketers of the decade announced by Wisden Cricketers’ Almanac. Along with Kohli, the other four cricketers who are included in the list are – Australia’s Steve Smith, South African duo of Dale Steyn and AB de Villiers, and women’s all-rounder Ellyse Perry.
Virat Kohli Named In Wisden Cricketers Of The Decade List
Kohli, who has scored 5,775 more international runs than anyone else in the last 10 years, has arguably been the best batsman over the last decade. Apart from this, the 31-year-old Indian was also named as the captain of the Wisden Test team of the decade, while also featuring in the ODI XI.
Speaking about Kohli, Wisden said, “His genius has been to rise, time and again, to the challenge. Between the end of the England tour in 2014 and the second Test against Bangladesh at Kolkata in November, Kohli averaged 63, with 21 hundreds and 13 fifties. It left him with a unique set of statistics – the only batsman to average at least 50 in all three international formats. Even Steve Smith was moved to remark recently that there is no one quite like him.”
It further added, “In many ways, there isn’t. Since the retirement of Sachin Tendulkar and the gradual waning of MS Dhoni, no cricketer in the world has operated under such daily pressure as Kohli.”
On Tuesday, ICC posted some astonishing stats about Kohli on its Twitter handle, which showed his dominance in world cricket over this decade. The ICC posted, “Virat Kohli this decade: 5,775 more international runs than anyone else, 22 more international hundreds than anyone else.”
In 2019, Kohli scored 2,370 across formats at an average of 64.05. It was the fourth consecutive time that the 31-year-old aggregated 2000-plus runs in a calendar year.
Kohli, who averages more than 50 in all formats, has already amassed 70 international hundreds and is only behind Ricky Ponting (71) and Sachin Tendulkar (100). He is also the third in the list of leading run-scorers of all time with 21,444 runs, behind Ponting (27,483) and Tendulkar (34,357).
The Indian skipper has already been named as the captain of Wisden’s Test team of the decade. The Indian run-machine also finds a spot in the Wisden ODI team of the decade alongside MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, and others.
