Virat Kohli of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (Photo by Pankaj Nangia/Getty Images)
Virat Kohli announced his retirement and called it curtains on a glorious Test career which spanned nearly 14 years from 2011 till 2025 – a period in which he rose to unprecedented heights with the bat while also leading India to historic overseas victories. He ended with an aggregate of 9230 runs in 123 Tests, placing him at number 4 on the all-time India list, only behind Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, and Sunil Gavaskar.
Kohli had a stunning record against Australia—the best opposition unit during his Test career—and was also India’s most successful captain ever in the format. He gave Indian Test cricket a new attitude and unleashed a world-class pack of fast bowlers under his leadership, helping India dominate red-ball cricket across the world.
RG looks at a few numbers that defined Virat Kohli—the Test batter and leader.
The Birth of a Test Superstar
Kohli announced himself in the 4th Test in Adelaide in 2012 when, walking out to bat at 87 for 4, he scored a masterclass 116 against the likes of Peter Siddle and co. Although Australia went on to win the match by 298 runs, the innings—which was Kohli’s maiden Test ton—gave rise to a young superstar from India. It was the birth of Virat Kohli—the Test batter.
Golden Era – Kohli’s Peak Years
Kohli was at the peak of his batting prowess between 2016 and 2019. He was unarguably the highest-impact batter in Test cricket during this period, towering above other members of the Fab 4—Joe Root, Steven Smith, and Kane Williamson. Kohli amassed 4208 runs in 43 Tests in these four years at a sensational average of 66.79. Only Root had a higher aggregate—just 34 more runs but in 29 additional innings—and Smith had a marginally better average among batters with a minimum of 1000 runs in the period. Kohli averaged 75.93 in 2016, 75.64 in 2017, 55.08 in 2018, and 68 in 2019—cumulatively the most prolific years of his Test career. No one registered more tons than Kohli’s 16 in this period.
55.10 – Kohli’s peak as a Test batter
Kohli reached his peak as a Test batter at the end of the Pune Test in October 2019, in which he piled on a colossal unbeaten 254 as India powered to a massive win by an innings and 137 runs. Kohli’s Test average soared to 55.1—the highest ever at the end of a Test.
Best Against the Best – Dominating Australia
Kohli had a fantastic record against Australia, both at home and away. Overall, he scored 2232 runs in 30 Tests against them at an average of 43.76 with nine hundreds. Only Jack Hobbs (12 in 41 Tests) and Sachin Tendulkar (11 in 39 Tests) recorded more Test tons against the Australians, who were unarguably the toughest opposition during Kohli’s career.
Kohli had a brilliant run in Australia, aggregating 1542 runs in 18 Tests (across 5 tours) at an average of 46.72. His seven hundreds Down Under are the joint second-most after Hobbs (9).
The tour of 2014-15 to Australia led Kohli to Test greatness as he piled on a magnificent 692 runs in just four matches at a strike rate of 63.3—the highest aggregate by an overseas batter in a 4-Test series in Australia. Kohli hammered four tons in the series, joint-most by a visiting batter in any Test series in Australia. One of his finest Test knocks came in the series opener at the Adelaide Oval when chasing 364, Kohli led India’s charge and hammered a magnificent 141 off just 175 deliveries. Australia got a real scare as India came close but eventually went down by 48 runs. Kohli had also registered a ton in the first innings, joining a unique club of Indian cricketers (only four at that point) who had scored a hundred in each innings of a Test.
Conquering England
Kohli had a disastrous tour of England in 2014, scoring just 134 runs in five Tests at an average of 13.4, with no fifty-plus scores. Such overseas tours have ended the careers of many famous players in Test history, but Kohli was made of a different mettle. He returned four years later and conquered the conditions and his difficulties against the moving ball, piling on 593 runs in five matches with two tons and three fifties on the 2018 tour of England.
Record-Breaking Double Tons
Kohli was a master at converting hundreds into double tons. He recorded seven double hundreds in his Test career—the most for an Indian batter—and the joint-fourth most in Test history, behind only Don Bradman, Kumar Sangakkara, and Brian Lara.
India’s Greatest Test Leader
Kohli led India in 68 Tests, winning 40 matches for a win percentage of 58.82%. It is the third-highest win percentage for a captain (min. 25 Tests at the helm), trailing only greats Steve Waugh (71.93%) and Ricky Ponting (62.34%).
Kohli’s greatest achievement as Test captain came in 2018-19 when he led India to a historic maiden series win in Australia.
Legacy of Pace – Kohli’s Quartet
Beyond all numbers, the greatest legacy of Kohli—the leader—was the rise of India’s Test pace quartet during his stint as captain. From Jasprit Bumrah’s debut in Cape Town in 2018 until the Centurion Test in December 2021, India’s fast bowlers had the best bowling average in the world (23.46).
Kapil Dev was the lone warrior in the 1970s and 80s, and that mantle was taken over by Javagal Srinath in the 1990s and Zaheer Khan in the 2000s. However, for the first time in their Test history, India had a quartet led by Bumrah, supported by Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, and Umesh Yadav—all at the peak of their prowess in the format.
Nikhil Narain is a die-hard cricket romantic, published author, and has worked for some of the leading digital websites and broadcasters in India and overseas. An alumnus of the London School of Economics, Nikhil's forte is using data and numbers creatively to weave interesting stories and revolutionize the way cricket statistics are generated and analyzed.
