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The headline itself sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? With all the hysteria surrounding the retirement of the ‘little master’, it seems outrageous to be anointing a young player as the next big thing.
Virat Kohli’s innings of 115 not out off just 66 balls against Australia confirmed for me that he is the best young batsman in the world.
It’s not the volume of runs he is scoring, but the manner in which he is doing it that has me most impressed.
During India’s 2011/12 tour of Australia, he was the only Indian batsman to score a century in the Test series. That in a side that included Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid and MS Dhoni. No mean feat.
Let’s not forget his century in the ODI series currently locked at 2-2 at Jaipur that helped India chase down 360 with six overs to spare.
Or his 133 not out off 86 deliveries against Sri Lanka in Hobart which resulted in chasing down 321 in just 36.4 overs. Unheard of in ODI cricket.
These types of innings used to be something of a rare occurance, and they are now happening on a consistent basis.
20 years from now, I feel Kohli will be remembered as the best batsman of his generation.
If you look at his ODI record it would suggest he is something of a freak.
I have compared ODI statistics with the three men considered to be the best one-day batsmen along with their Test match records.
Viv Richards was considered the godfather of one-day cricket, scoring 11 centuries over 187 games for the West Indies at an average of 47.
Sachin Tendulkar took 79 ODI appearances for India to score his first century. He then went on to score 49 centuries at an average of 44.83 across 463 games.
Ricky Ponting represented Australia 375 times in ODI cricket and was able to score 30 centuries with an average of 42.03.
In 118 games for India, Kohli has amassed 4,919 runs at an average of 52.32 with an astonishing 17 centuries.
Kohli’s average is superior of all those players, he already has more centuries than Richards and if he continues to play for an extended period he will score well over 10,000 runs, an achievement once considered all but impossible.
If we look at the Test Match arena you will see Kohli has some work to do, but should his game improve from here.
Kohli has played only 18 Test matches for four centuries, scoring 1175 runs at an average of 41.96. Those numbers are very respectable without being in the all time great category for the five-day game.
Ponting scored 13,378 runs at an average of 51.85 including 41 centuries.
Tendulkar has 15,837 runs averaging 53.86 with 51 centuries.
Richards scored 8,540 runs with 24 centuries at an average of 50.
Kohli’s numbers in Test cricket don’t compare with the all time greats just yet, but in time they will. He is just one week shy of his 25th birthday and is coming into his peak years as a player.
Tendulkar is still playing at 40 years old, Ponting retired at 38 and Richards played his last Test at 39 years old.
Time won’t be an issue for Kohli and I can’t see much else getting in his way of becoming a Gen Y legend of the game.
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