Is Virat Kohli the Greatest ODI Batsman in History?
If India wins the World Cup, there will be a compelling argument to name Virat Kohli the best ODI batsman in history on November 19. He’s a strong contender for this unofficial championship because of his run production’s consistency, longevity, and pace.
After 13437 ODI runs in his career, Kohli averages 58 runs per wicket and nearly 94 runs per 100 balls faced. As of this writing, he stands one wicket short of Sachin Tendulkar’s record with 48 ODI hundreds. He has been playing brilliantly in 2023’s One-Day Internationals. He is presently just 797 runs behind Kumar Sangakkara, who is ranked second on that leaderboard with 14,234 runs, and almost 5000 runs short of Tendulkar’s career total of 18,426 runs.
Apart from advancements in bat technology and the rise of the power game, ODI cricket has experienced notable run inflation as a result of modifications to the regulations governing field configurations and ball usage. Normalizing each player’s scoring rate and batting average in relation to their teammates in games including them is one method to explain this inflation (the average ODI scoring rate in the 1980s was 4.4 runs per over; in the 2010s, it increased to 5.2 runs per over).
Rahul Dravid, for instance, batted 344 times in One-Day Internationals (ODIs) and amassed 10,889 runs at a 39.2 average and a 71.2 strike rate. The remaining ten Indian players and substitutes scored runs at a strike rate of 86.2 and an average of 31.5 over those games. Compared to the other 10 Indian players, Dravid’s average was 24.4% higher (positive), and his scoring rate was 17.4% lower (negative).
The table below lists the 14 players who score goals faster than their teammates and are more reliable overall. Some players on this list, including as Chris Gayle of the West Indies, Brendan Taylor of Zimbabwe, Arjuna Ranatunga of Sri Lanka, and Shakib Al Hasan of Bangladesh, played for relatively poor teams. Though they don’t have very noteworthy individual records for their era, they each have distinctive roles on their teams.
In general, two players stand out: Viv Richards and AB de Villiers. These two are the best ODI batters in the history of the format, by all standards, excluding longevity. Richards and De Villiers scored between 11% and 24% faster than their teammates and were both around 50% more consistent than them.
Tendulkar opened the batting for India for about 20 years and played Twenty20 international cricket for almost 25 years. No other player will likely ever reach his career runs aggregate number. Kohli, the nearest active batsman, is about 5,000 runs away. Kohli will need to play over 120 more ODIs to reach the 5000-run total, even at the current rate.
On the table, Sanath Jayasuriya and Virender Sehwag stand out as two players. They stand alone among their teammates in having a higher scoring rate than batting average. In contrast to the other players in the table (and the majority of the 60 ODI players in the graph), they, Gilchrist, and Afridi took a different decision.
With the exception of Afridi, who opened for 3543 of his 8064 runs, all four of these players had figures that highlight the crucial trade-off between speed and consistency in ODI cricket. For the majority of an ODI innings, a hitter faces little danger of being dismissed. Boundaries are not intended in field settings, and the fielding sides’ inclination toward containment has not been altered by powerplay rule modifications either. A fielding team almost never has more fielders than needed inside the 30-yard circle, and they almost never have catching fielders. The ODI batsman’s desire to score runs fast gives rise to the possibility of removal. Players who can score points rapidly without compromising consistency are the best.
Putting Richards and de Villiers aside for the time being, Tendulkar and Kohli are both excellent in specific roles. As an opener, Tendulkar scored 15,310 runs (more than any other player) and at No. 3, Kohli has now amassed 11,316 runs at an average of 61. It is an amazing feat of consistency for someone to remain so consistent over 223 innings, even after taking inflation into consideration.
The following graph displays each player’s record in their preferred position from World Cup to World Cup. A few pages below, in the table, is the data utilized in the graph.
The remarkable thing about Kohli’s track record is his consistency. He has either exhibited extreme consistency, as he did in the 2015–19 phase, or extreme consistency, as he did in the 2011–15 phase, the 2009–11 phase, or the 2019–23 phase. Because the run production at the other end mirrored Kohli’s run production, the scoring rate has never been a problem. Put another way, he wasn’t in charge of giving his squad both consistency and speed.
It was a different story for Tendulkar. From the beginning of his opening career till around the 2003 World Cup, he was in charge of giving the Indian batting team both speed and consistency. He accomplished this with remarkable accomplishment. At an average of 50 and a strike rate of 90, he scored 9416 runs between 1994 and the conclusion of the 2003 World Cup. Nobody else was able to match this blend of consistency and pace.
When you compare Tendulkar’s run production during his 9577 ODI career to that of his teammates, you can see how remarkable this decade was for him. While de Villiers was 49% more consistent and 11% quicker over the same number of runs, Tendulkar was 60% more consistent and 11% quicker.
Following the 2003 World Cup, Tendulkar appeared differently. Even though he was still incredibly reliable, India’s Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, and Mahendra Singh Dhoni could score runs very swiftly, especially after he returned from injury in 2006. Similar to the Indian batting lineup that Tendulkar played in, Kohli’s career was primarily played in this lineup from about 2006 to 2013. India has produced so many quick scorers over the years that finally even the immensely talented Dhoni could afford to back off and let others take their opportunities.
Batters that are on a strong team have fewer obstacles to overcome. However, there isn’t much that Kohli can do about the fact that the Indian team he has represented consistently ranks among the top two in the world. However, the fact remains that Tendulkar, apart from Richards, fulfilled the combined challenge of being a reliable and rapid run-scorer for almost 10 years and more than nine thousand runs in the history of the ODI format.
About six years ago, when I last thought about Kohli’s place in the pantheon, his remarkable (albeit relatively brief) record of about eight years at the time put him first among equals. His longevity undoubtedly ranks him among the all-time greats in 2023.
Is he the all-time best batter in One-Day Cricket? Kohli has had an incredible career, amassing over 13,000 runs and 48 ODI hundreds (one every six innings). Even with run inflation taken into consideration, Kohli is arguably Tendulkar’s equal as an ODI hitter overall given his longevity. However, Tendulkar’s professional career spanned almost 25 years. To play as many ODIs as Tendulkar did, Kohli would need to play an additional 176 (roughly Richards’ whole career), and he would need to score almost 5,000 more runs to catch Tendulkar’s aggregate. Even if he achieved all of that and surpassed Tendulkar’s lifespan, we would still need to deal with the minor issue of that remarkable decade.
In the final ten years of his incredible career, Tendulkar was not as good an ODI player as Kohli is. Yet from 1994 to 2003, Tendulkar reached heights equaled only by de Villiers and exceeded only by Richards during his first 204 innings as an opener, culminating in the 2003 World Cup final. Does Kohli’s career contain any instances when he reached these heights? Needing to score runs quickly has never really been a problem for Kohli, as the record above demonstrates because in every Indian side he played for, the runs came at the other end just as swiftly, if not more quickly.
Compared to players in teams where their teammates score more slowly, players in one-on-one practice (ODI) teams with teammates who score at roughly the same pace can make more calculated decisions about when to take risks. Tendulkar enjoyed that luxury in the latter ten years of his career because a number of other players were capable of taking those risks (and in Virender Sehwag’s case, making a practice of it). That privilege has always been Kohli’s. Tendulkar did not have it from 1994 to 2003. In my opinion, he is only a little bit higher in the ODI pantheon than Virat Kohli based on the record he made in that decade.
