It always makes for a compelling story when a decorated and outstanding batter, widely admired in world cricket, doubles up as a fine captain. During one of Team India’s most important and dominant phases
as a test side during the 2010 up until the beginning of the 2020s, someone who epitomised excellence and further solidified India’s presence as a team that played a commanding brand of cricket was none other than Virat Kohli. As a matter of fact, the phrase Kohli does not only exemplify immense batting talent and world records (which perhaps now is common knowledge), it also underlines true leadership.
And make no mistake for this is no randomspeak! In fact, anything but. Virat Kohli, the Test batsman who took over as captain of the side was during 2014 during a one off sudden assignment towards the fag end of the year, would become the full time red ball captain of the side in 2015.
Rohit Sharma said, “I’m a very big fan of Virat Kohli’s Test captaincy”. (JioStar). pic.twitter.com/Rs92lbJT2Y
— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) September 29, 2026
He will continue to lead the team well until 2022, which is when he respectfully moved away from the side’s leadership. But what was achieved during this phase as at the helm of Team India’s immensely valuable test leader has impacted even legends just as big or prominent as Virat Kohli himself; the great Rohit Sharma going as far as saying that “I’m a big fan of Virat Kohli’s test captaincy!”
So that leads to the question- why is that? What about Kohli’s records is like that where it commands respects from all corners? While they say, the devil lies in the details, the answer lies in the stats. Isn’t it? The numbers do tell a tail of their own.
As a matter of factly, from Jan 2015-2022, Kohli led the side in as many as 25 Test series, during which he would captain the team in no fewer than 68 Test matches. Of these, he was able to ensure that his India emerged on the top of the results in as many as 40 of those games whilst losing just 17. There were 18 draws achieved in such time. But to come to think of it, if you’re losing just 17 test games during a 7 year leadership period, you’ve already epitomised greatness. Have you not?
Critical to this success was the very fact that no fewer than 16 Test matches were won overseas or foreign conditions.
Great cricketers impact the game in all possible areas. During his time has captain, besides making heaps of runs with the bat including test double hundreds, Kohli also gave much comfort and strength to outstanding batters in this format such as Pujara, Rahane among the others.
