London: India captain Virat Kohli has been named in the Cricketers of the decade list alongside four others by the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanac.
Apart from Kohli, South African duo of Dale Steyn and AB de Villiers, Australia’s Steve Smith and women’s all-rounder Ellyse Perry also found a place in the list of five cricketers of the decade.
Kohli, who has scored 5,775 more international runs than anyone else in the last 10 years, has arguably been the best batsman over the last decade.
The 31-year-old Indian was named captain of the Wisden Test team of the decade, while also featuring in the ODI XI. ‘He is genius has been to rise, time and again, to the challenge. Between the end of the England tour in 2014 and the second Test against Bangladesh at Kolkata in November, Kohli averaged 63, with 21 hundreds and 13 fifties,’
Wisden wrote. “It left him with a unique set of statistics – the only batsman to average at least 50 in all three international formats. Even Steve Smith was moved to remark recently that there is no one quite like him.”In many ways, there isn’t. Since the retirement of Sachin Tendulkar and the gradual waning of MS Dhoni, no cricketer in the world has operated under such daily pressure as Kohli.”
In the past decade Kohli has hoarded 7,202 runs in Tests including 27 hundreds, while in the shorter formats the Indian skipper has amassed 11,125 runs in ODIs and 2,633 runs in T20s.
Kohli, who averages more than 50 in all formats, has already amassed 70 international hundreds and is only behind Ricky Ponting (71) and Sachin Tendulkar (100). He is third in the list of leading run-scorers of all time with 21,444 runs, behind Ponting (27,483) and Tendulkar (34,357).