India captain Virat Kohli has been named by Wisden as one of its five cricketers of the decade, joining Steve Smith, Dale Steyn, AB de Villiers and Ellyse Perry in the exclusive list.
From the end of the tour of England in 2014, to the conclusion of the Second Test against Bangladesh in Kolkata last month, the 31 year old from Delhi averaged 63, with 21 hundreds and 13 fifties. It gives him the unique distinction of being the only player over the past ten years of averaging over 50 in all three formats of the international game.
Last week, the ICC published more arresting statistics about Kohil’s achievements in the last ten years – 5,775 more international runs, and 22 more international hundreds than his closest challengers.
2019 was another fine year for Kohli. He scored 2,370 international runs in all formats of the game, giving him an average of 64.05. That made it the fourth consecutive year he has scored more than 2,000 international runs.
Kohli has also been named as captain of the Wisden Test team of the decade, and has also been chosen in the ODI team, alongside MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma.
Smith is arguably Kohli’s closest rival to the title of best batsman in the world right now. In the past decade he has played 71 tests and scored more than 7,000 runs at an average of 63.14, with 26 hundreds to his name, and a best score of 239. He has also played in 118 ODIs and 36 T2oIs, scoring more than 4,000 international runs across both formats. And those figures would have been even better had he not served a year’s ban from international cricket for his part in the infamous “Sandpaper Gate” ball tampering incident.
Dale Steyn, along with Morné Morkel and Vernon Philander, formed part of what has been described as the finest bowling attack South Africa have ever produced, helping their country top the IC test rankings in 2013 and 2014. He retired from test cricket in August of this year at the age of 36, having taken 439 wickets in 93 matches, and being regarded as one of the best fast bowlers of the modern era.
His team mate for much of that time, AB de Villiers, has earned a reputation as much for his ability to defend, as for his attacking shots. Despite the fact that he holds the record for the fastest ODI 50, 100 and 150, he is also only one of two more in the past ten years – Hashim Amla is the other – to have faced more than 200 deliveries in a test match innings for less than 50 runs. And de Villiers managed it three times, drawing him level in the all-time list with John Wright of New Zealand.
Ellyse Perry began the decade as an opening bowler, but evolved along the way to become a world-class all-rounder across all formats of the game, with a batting average of 114.6, and a bowling one of less than 17. Her statistics would probably have been better still, but she has been hampered by the limitations of the women’s game, with only Australia and England playing test cricket on a regular basis.