The former captain Virat Kohli announced his retirement from red-ball cricket through an Instagram post today. Virat Kohli played a crucial part in creating an Indian side that could win matches in both home and away venues. Virat turned the Indian fast-bowling unit into a terrifying attack in world cricket.
Many times, he carried the team with the bat in overseas conditions when other batters failed. He has been the pillar of the team for more than a decade. In his 14-year Test career, he broke and created a bunch of records.
Stats
Virat Kohli represented India in 123 tests and scored 9,230 runs in 210 innings with 30 hundreds and 31 fifties. He made his test debut for India against the West Indies in 2011. He played his last test against Australia in 2025.
He captained the Indian test team from 2014-2021. Those seven years were called the Golden Period of Indian test cricket. He played at the no.4 position in the team, which was played by Sachin Tendulkar before him. He handled the pressure and filled the shoes of his master perfectly.
Double Centuries by Virat Kohli
Virat Kohli had scored seven double centuries in Test cricket, the most by an Indian. He broke the previous record of Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag, who had six double centuries each.
He is the only player to score 4 double centuries in 4 consecutive test series. He made that record from July 2016 – Feb 2017.
- 200 vs West Indies ( July, 2016 )
- 211 vs New Zealand ( October, 2016 )
- 235 vs England ( December, 2016 )
- 204 vs Bangladesh ( February, 2017 )
- Legends like Don Bradman and Rahul Dravid had done this in three consecutive series.
Virat Kohli also holds the record of being the only player to score all his seven double centuries as Captain. He leads the list of most double centuries by a Captain in tests. Brain Lara stands at the second place in this list with five double tons as a skipper.
254
Virat Kohli scored his career best knock of 254 runs against South Africa in 2019, which remains as the highest score by an Indian captain in an innings. Kohli holds the second and third position in this list as well with 243 and 235. MS Dhoni is in the 4th place in the list with 224 runs.
Captaincy
Virat Kohli captained India in 68 tests, and have won 40 out of them. He lost 17 matches, and 11 matches ended in draw. He holds the record of the most wins as an Indian Captain in test cricket. MS Dhoni is at the second place with 27 wins in 60 games.
Indian captains to win more test matches :
- Virat Kohli – 40 ( 68 tests )
- MS Dhoni – 27 ( 60 test )
- Sourav Ganguly – 21 ( 49 tests )
He stands at the 4th place in the overall list of most test wins as a captain. Captains with most test wins :
- Graeme Smith – 53 ( 109 tests )
- Ricky Ponting – 48 ( 77 tests )
- Steve Waugh – 41 ( 57 tests )
- Virat Kohli – 40 ( 68 tests )
- Clive Lloyds – 36 ( 74 tests )
Conquered Australia
Virat Kohli was the first Asian Captain to win a test series in Australia. He won the 2018 Border-Gavaskar trophy by 2-1. Under his captaincy, India became the first Asian team to win a test series in Australian soil. Rahane became the second captain to achieve this feat by winning the next BGT series in 2020-2021 by 2-1.
Bowler’s supremacy
India was known for their batting skills for a long time with producing legendary batters like Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar, Rahul Dravid, and VVS Laxman. But Virat made the Indian bowling unit look inevitable, and won many matches with the bowlers.
Under his leadership, India bowled out the opponents below 200 for a record 50 times. He beat the previous record of Graeme Smith, who had done this in 48 occasions.
Most centuries
Virat Kohli smashed 20 centuries in his 68 tests as the captain, becoming the Indian with more test centuries as a captain. In the overall list, he stands at the second place next to Greame Smith who has 25 centuries in 109 tests.
Indians with most test centuries as a captain :
- Virat Kohli – 20
- Sunil Gavaskar – 11
- Mohammed Azharuddin – 9
- Sachin Tendulkar – 7
- MS Dhoni – 5
- Sourav Ganguly – 5
Most test centuries as a captain :
- Graeme Smith – 25
- Virat Kohli – 20
- Ricky Ponting – 19
- Steve Waugh – 15
- Allan Border – 15
- Steven Smith – 15