When you talk of the greatest batsmen produced by Indian cricket, Virat Kohli’s name has to be among the top three. If Sunil Gavaskar dominated the 1970s and 80s as India’s premier batsmen, Sachin Tendulkar stood out as the country’s most complete batsman in the 1990s and 200s. Similarly, from the current generation, it is Kohli who has been on a run-scoring spree for as long as one can remember and is considered the best batsman of the modern-day era.
When you talk of the Fab 5 batsmen of the current generation, from India, it’s always Kohli. Former cricketers and cricket pundits believe it. Kohli may have gone a year and a half without an international century, but there has been no shortage of runs from the bat of the India captain. As Kohli gears up to lead India for the second time in England, he has received quite some praise from former Pakistan captain Salman Butt, who has called Kohli the best all-format player of the current era.
“I believe Virat Kohli is the most impactful batsman in the world across all formats. There is no doubt about that. His performances speak for themselves and have turned the results in his team’s favour,” Butt said during a Q/A session on his YouTube channel.
It is hard to argue with Butt. Kohli averages 52.37 in Tests, 59.07 in ODIs and 52.65 in T20Is, making him one of the very few batsmen from today’s generation to average in excess of 50 in all three formats. Besides, no one has more international centuries than Kohli, who has 70 tons across formats. With 43 hundreds, Kohli is next only to the great Tendulkar in terms of the most ODI centuries. Besides, Kohli’s tally of 12169 runs makes him the second-highest Indian ODI run-getter after Tendulkar.
Kohli holds the world record for being the fastest batsman to 8000, 9000, 10000, 11000 and 12,000 runs in ODIs. Among Indian batsmen, Kohli has the best ever Test rating (937 points), ODI rating (911 points) and T20I rating (897 points).
