Virat Kohli vs Viv Richards: An ODI comparison

Vivian Richards was a fearsome batsman in his prime

OVERALL NUMBERS

Viv Richards ended his ODI career with 6721 runs in his kitty, scored at a strike rate of 90 and an average of 47. Kohli’s, meanwhile, is an ongoing career in which he has scored 7212 runs, with a strike rate of 89 and an average of 51.

Kohli looks to have an edge over Richards over almost all parameters, but a deeper look into the numbers tells a different story altogether. Putting these records into the context of the times in which these were collected puts Viv Richards on a higher pedestal than Kohli.

Richards’s batting average factor is 1.60, implying that his average was 60% higher than the overall batting average of top and middle order batsmen during his playing days (June 1975-May 1991). Kohli’s average factor, helped by his insane century scoring frequency, is 1.56.

While average factors (% better than the overall average) is almost the same for both players, it is the strike rate that puts Viv in a class of his own. Kohli’s strike rate factor is 1.11, whereas Richards’ is 1.37.

In fact, for the 33 players who scored more than 2000 ODI runs during Richards’ career span, only Kapil Dev (99.18) had a strike rate greater than his and only 3 other batsmen had a strike rate of more than 80; Saleem Malik, Zaheer Abbas and Aravinda De Silva.

Multiplying the average and the strike rate factor shows that Richards was more than twice as good as the average batsman, whereas Kohli’s factor is 1.73. Not only was Richards scoring heavily, but was scoring it at a rate which was unheard of during the ‘80s.

Player Name	Matches	Innings	Not Outs	Runs	Average	100	50	S/R
Viv Richards	181	167	24	6721	47.00	11	45	90.51
Virat Kohli	171	163	23	7212	51.51	25	36	89.97

Table 1: Overall Numbers Comparison

Player Name	Career Span	Player Batting Average	Player Strike Rate	Overall Average	Overall Strike Rate	Average Factor	S/R Factor	Overall Factor
Viv Richards	1975-1991	47.00	90.51	29.38	65.96	1.60	1.37	2.20
Virat Kohli	2008-2016	51.51	89.97	32.95	81.07	1.56	1.11	1.73

Next, let’s take a look at the Average and Striker Rate factor comparisons