#4 Virat Kohli’s batting stats as Test captain are much better
It is said that some players are burdened by captaincy, so much so that their performances as a player get affected and their numbers go down. This wasn’t the case with both Kohli and Dhoni as their numbers as captain and non-captain tell us that they didn’t let captaincy affect their batting in any way.
But when we compare the two, we see that the difference in Kohli’s stats as a batsman when he is captain and when he was not captain is far greater than Dhoni’s.
MS Dhoni’s batting stats as captain
Tests | Innings | Runs | Average | Hundreds | Fifties |
60 | 96 | 3454 | 40.63 | 5 | 24 |
MS Dhoni’s batting stats as non-captain
Tests | Innings | Runs | Average | Hundreds | Fifties |
30 | 48 | 1422 | 33.07 | 1 | 9 |
Overall
Tests | Innings | Runs | Average | Hundreds | Fifties |
90 | 144 | 4876 | 38.09 | 6 | 33 |
Difference in average as captain and non-captain: +7.56
Difference in average as captain and his overall stats: +2.54
Virat Kohli’s batting stats as captain
Tests | Innings | Runs | Average | Hundreds | Fifties |
17 | 27 | 1456 | 53.92 | 6 | 2 |
Virat Kohli’s batting stats as non-captain
Tests | Innings | Runs | Average | Hundreds | Fifties |
31 | 5 | 2098 | 41.13 | 7 | 10 |
Overall
Tests | Innings | Runs | Average | Hundreds | Fifties |
48 | 82 | 3554 | 45.56 | 13 | 12 |
Difference in average as captain and non-captain: +12.79
Difference in average as captain and his overall stats: +8.36
As can be clearly seen from the stats, Virat Kohli’s game as a Test batsman has gone to a next level after becoming the captain and he is leading by example with the bat.
He recently became the first Indian Test captain to score two double hundreds and also holds the record for being the only Test captain to score hundreds in his first 3 innings as captain. Dhoni’s stats too show that he averaged better as Test captain but the difference in Kohli’s stats as captain and non-captain is startling.
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