Table 4: Performance in tournament Semi Finals and Finals
His finals record notwithstanding, Kohli has nevertheless emerged as an extraordinary match-winner while chasing. His record while chasing is phenomenal when seen in the all-time context. Kohli averages a mind-boggling 83.97, as compared to Richards’ formidable 57.97.
Kohli has also scored 13 centuries in successful chases, next only to Sachin Tendulkar’s 14. His average is bettered only by two of the most brilliant finishers in this format, MS Dhoni (105.77), and Michael Bevan (86.25).
| Player Name | Matches | Innings | Not Outs | Runs | Average | 100 | 50 |
| Viv Richards | 75 | 58 | 20 | 2203 | 57.97 | 3 | 15 |
| Virat Kohli | 60 | 57 | 18 | 3275 | 83.97 | 13 | 14 |
Table 5: Record in successful Run Chases
Part of the explanation for Kohli’s astronomical average can be the fact that India’s average successfully chased score during Kohli’s career span (Aug 2008-Oct 2016) has been 227, compared with the West Indies’ average chase of 185 during Richards’ career span (Jun 1975-May 1991), thus giving Kohli more opportunities to score big runs.
Also, Richards’ career saw him bat after the legendary opening pair of Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes had given the West Indies a solid start, as is evident in an average opening partnership of 54.87, compared with 50.64 for India during Kohli’s career span.
Please also note that these are the only possible explanations for the yawning gap between the two batsmen’s averages, this is not meant to take anything away from Kohli’s incredible temperament during run chases.
Let’s proceed to take a look at how the two fared in Partnerships!
PARTNERSHIP ANALYSIS
Building partnerships is the hallmark of a match-winning batsman in any format of the game, even more so in the 50 over format where run scoring cannot be allowed to dry up at any point. Kohli and Viv Richards compare very favourably when in comes to building partnerships in ODIs.
Richards was involved in 303 partnerships throughout his ODI career, Virat Kohli has been involved in 317 in his career so far.
Richards and Kohli are involved in almost the same number of partnerships per match at 1.81 and 1.94 respectively. But a wicket wise breakdown reveals an interesting insight. Virat Kohli is involved, on an average, in 2 partnerships when coming in at the fall of the 1st wicket; which he has done 112 times so far.
Viv Richards, on the other hand, is involved in 1.84 partnerships coming in at his most frequent position, no.4. Kohli has been involved in meatier partnerships through his career, as is evident from an average 46.2 runs per partnership compared to 40.4 for Viv Richards.
The wickets that Kohli has most frequently been involved in partnerships for also amount to more number of runs than they did with Richards. (56.33 and 45.79 for the 3rd and 2nd wicket respectively for Kohli vs 40.90 and 44.30 for the 3rd and 2nd wicket respectively for Viv Richards).
Nonetheless, being true to his dominating style of play, Richards scored 54.9% (6721/12241) of the runs he added in partnerships during his career. Kohli, meanwhile, has been more forthcoming to his batting partners by scoring 49.2% (7212/14644) of the total partnership runs by himself.
The general tendency to score quickly, and Kohli’s propensity to keep the scoreboard ticking along has meant that he has been slightly ahead of Viv when it comes to building partnerships.
| Wicket | Innings_Viv | Innings_Kohli | Partnerships_Viv | Partnerships_Kohli | Average Partnerships_Viv | Average Partnerships_Kohli | Runs_Viv | Runs_Kohli | Average_Viv | Average_Kohli |
| 1 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 13 | 1.00 | 2.17 | 31 | 268 | 31 | 20.61 |
| 2 | 52 | 112 | 103 | 228 | 1.98 | 2.04 | 4563 | 10442 | 44.30 | 45.79 |
| 3 | 79 | 37 | 145 | 63 | 1.84 | 1.70 | 5930 | 3549 | 40.90 | 56.33 |
| 4 | 29 | 3 | 47 | 5 | 1.62 | 1.67 | 1593 | 262 | 33.89 | 52.40 |
| 5 | 5 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 1.20 | 2 | 113 | 42 | 18.83 | 21 |
| 6 | 4 | 6 | 1.50 | 81 | 13.50 | |||||
| 7 | ||||||||||
| 8 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 11.00 | |||||
| 9 | ||||||||||
| Total | 167 | 163 | 303 | 317 | 1.81 | 1.94 | 12241 | 14468 | 40.4 | 46.2 |
Table 6: Partnerships Summary
The comparison of Richards’ and Kohli’s numbers is not a competition for one-upmanship. Richards has been the greatest exponent of the ODI format, whereas Kohli has revelled in it quite unlike anybody in recent times.
A comparison of players across different eras also throws up interesting insights into how the game has changed over the years; from easy paced 60 (and then 50) over matches, to the chock a block modern day ODI contest. Viv was the standout in a crowd of ordinaries, the first and the foremost torch bearer for the format.
Virat has carried that torch and run quite a distance with it. Where does he end up, only time will tell!
