A Look At Virat Kohli's Numbers As Captain In ODI Cricket

A new era of Indian cricket in the white-ball format is set to begin under new full-time limited-overs captain Rohit Sharma. On Wednesday, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced that going forward, Rohit will lead India in ODIs after the T20Is. The opening batsman was also appointed as vice-captain in Tests replacing Ajinkya Rahane. Rohit's elevation to the top job in ODIs also brought the curtains down on Virat Kohli's era as captain in limited-overs cricket. Kohli has exceptional numbers in the ODIs as captain where he has a win percentage of 70.43 -- the most by an Indian who has led the national side in more than 10 matches.

Virat Kohli had led Team India in 95 ODI matches and registered victories 65 times. He is the fourth in the list of most victories by an Indian captain where MS Dhoni leads the tally with 110 wins, followed by Mohammad Azharuddin (90) and Sourav Ganguly (76).

Virat Kohli as India's ODI captain:

Matches- 95

Won- 65

Lost- 27

Tie- 1

No result- 2

Win percentage- 70.43

The 33-year-old is also the third-best ODI skipper (minimum 90 matches as captain) in international cricket when it comes to win percentage. Australia's Ricky Ponting dominates the tally with 76.14 percent followed by South Africa's Hansie Cronje (73.70 percent).

Under Kohli's leadership, India won 15 ODI bilateral series out of 19, which also includes victories in South Africa, Australia, and West Indies.

Batting maestro

Kohli also has the best batting average (72.65) as ODI captain (with a minimum of 75 matches) in cricket history. The second best is of South Africa's AB de Villers who has an average of 63.94 in 103 matches as ODI skipper.

During his ODI captaincy stint, Kohli scored 5449 runs in 95 matches with 21 hundreds.

The 21 tons as ODI skipper is the most by an Indian captain in the 50-over format and second-most overall. Ricky Ponting is on top of the tally with 22 ODI centuries as captain.

With Wednesday's announcement of BCCI, it is confirmed Kohli will never be seen again leading the national side in any white-ball game as earlier in September the star batter had made the announcement of stepping down as T20I skipper after the T20 World Cup to ease his workload.

"Understanding workload is a very important thing and considering my immense workload over the last 8-9 years playing all 3 formats and captaining regularly for the last 5-6 years, I feel I need to give myself space to be fully ready to lead the Indian team in Test and ODI cricket," Kohli had said before the T20 World Cup.

Earlier, Kohli also stepped down as skipper of his Indian Premier League franchise- Royal Challengers Bangalore. The IPL 2021 season was his last as RCB skipper where the team from Bangalore was knocked out in the Eliminator.

Success in Tests

Kohli has led India in three major ICC white-ball trophies including the recently concluded T20 World Cup where his side failed to make it to the final four.

The 2017 Champions Trophy was Kohli's first ICC tournament as skipper where India lost to Pakistan in the final.

In the 2019 ODI World Cup, the Indian team under the leadership of Kohli lost to New Zealand in the semis.

However, Kohli will continue to lead India in a red-ball format where he is the most successful Indian captain with 39 wins. MS Dhoni (27 wins) is the second in that list.

The Indian captain is also the all-time third most successful Test captain when it comes to the number of victories where only South Africa's Graeme Smith (53) and Australia's Ricky Ponting are ahead of the star Indian skipper.

Topics mentioned in this article

India Cricket Team Virat Kohli Rohit Sharma Cricket