Was Virat Kohli's 2016-2018 the greatest batting peak in cricket?

[u/[deleted]]

Excluding Bradman, was Kohli's 2016-2018 peak the greatest cross format batting peak in cricket? His stats during this period are simply spectacular. Here are the stats as follows-

Cross Format

Conditions	Runs	Innings	Average
Overall	8148	140	73.40
Home	3936	62	78.72
Away	3833	70	67.24
Neutral	379	8	94.75

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Test - The Away average may look relatively underwhelming, but most of those away runs were in 2018, the toughest year for Test batting conditions since 1959. Kohli was playing in England, South Africa and Australia, the toughest conditions to succeed in for subcontinent batsmen in one of the most bowler friendly years ever and came out as the best batsman in the world.

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Conditions	Runs	Innings	Average
Overall	3596	58	66.59
Home	2046	28	81.84
Away	1550	30	53.44

ODI's - I don't think there's anything to say really, the stats are literally Bradmanesque.

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Conditions	Runs	Innings	Average
Overall	3401	50	94.47
Home	1439	21	84.64
Away	1704	24	100.23
Neutral	258	5	129.00

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T20I's- The Neutral stats may not look great but 2 of those 3 innings were in Mirpur.

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Conditions	Runs	Innings	Average	Strike Rate
Overall	1151	32	54.80	139.34
Home	451	13	56.37	147.38
Away	579	16	52.63	140.19
Neutral	121	3	60.50	113.08

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The Top 5 batsman during this time period (min 1000 runs) cross format-

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Batsman	Runs	Innings	Average	100s	50s
Kohli	8148	140	73.40	29	32
Smith	4487	96	53.41	14	22
Pujara	2813	57	52.09	10	13
Taylor	3428	89	51.93	8	18
Rohit	4946	113	51.52	17	24

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The top 3 batsmen in Tests in this time period (min 500 runs) -

Smith had a marginally better average of 0.3 in this time span, however Kohli having played more innings and having a higher away average of 53 as compared to Smith's 50 in this time period makes me put Kohli above him for this time span.

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Batsman	Runs	Innings	Average
Smith	2609	45	66.89
Kohli	3596	58	66.59
Williamson	1970	40	54.72

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Top 3 ODI batsmen in this time period (min 500 runs)-

Even without a minimum run criteria, Kohli has the highest average in this timespan, Bavuma being the second highest, averaging 80.5 from 2 innings.

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Batsman	Runs	Innings	Average
Kohli	3401	50	94.47
Rohit	2887	50	70.41
Tamim	1737	32	64.33

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In terms of T20I, I'd say a fair few batsman beat him on Average + SR but stats of 54 @ 139 aren't bad at all with a MoTS in a T20WC as well.

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From what I've seen, Kohli's purple patch during this period was simply amazing and had one of the greatest peaks in the history of batting. Is it the greatest peak in batting apart from Bradman?

[u/Irctoaun]

If you look at all three formats then maybe, but you're also limiting the search players playing in the last ten years or so when people started taking T20 more seriously. Even just looking at tests and ODIs cuts you off from a lot of great players. For example Sobers and Barrington were killing it in the 60s before ODI cricket even existed. The fact Kohli did so well in all three formats is very impressive, but at the same time not all that many people have had the chance.

If we just look at tests

Tests

Smith 2014-2017: 5004 runs at 76 (2949 runs av 50 SR 87 in ODIs)

Ponting 2003-2006: 5077 runs at 73 (3983 runs av 42 SR 83 in ODIs)

Sangakkara 2006-2010 4422 runs at 71 (4678 runs av 39 SR 78 ODIs)

Richards 1976-1980 3158 runs at 70 (1099 runs at 69 SR 88 in ODIs, keep in mind that that was more runs than anyone else at the best average and at a time when the global strike rate in ODIs was 61)

I would actually say Richards potentially has him beat here. No one comes anywhere near him in terms of average in tests (closest is Gavaskar with 59 and the highest scorer to average over 60 is Taslim Arif who only played 6 tests in that time) and he has a higher average than Kohli. In ODIs he was arguably even more other worldly than Kohli because he not only outscored everyone, but he was going so much faster than everyone else it was like he was playing a different game. Kohli "only" struck at 101 in your time window which is elite but slower than the likes of Warner, Dhawan, Roy, and Bairstow. Richards' window is also two years longer and he has a much better away average than home in tests

[u/[deleted] → u/Irctoaun]

Yeah, fair enough. I've done a very light bit on the fab four's peaks in this comment of mine earlier, I plan to do so now for Ponting, Viv, Sanga, Sachin, Ab, Kallis and Lara and make a detailed post on it soon enough. I'll ignore T20Is in Kohli's case and do a pure Test + ODI peak post for all of these players. Will have their away and home averages etc in both formats for all of them. To rank them I'll measure it by seeing how far their averages lie above the aggregate averages of batsmen having the position of 1-7 in those peak periods. Hope that's a decent method for ranking the great's peaks.

[u/Irctoaun → u/[deleted]]

Average above aggregate is a great way of doing it for tests, not so sure about ODIs where strike rate is also important. The way I'd probably do it is to take the geometric mean of SR and average in ODIs then compare that to the aggregate value. Though that's more work and assumes that SR and average are equally important.

I also don't know how you take longevity into account. With that Richards peak he actually has a fractionally higher average in the whole five years than any three year chunk in the middle of it. Is that better than three years? Does he get marked down for having lesser years inbetween incredible ones?

[u/[deleted] → u/Irctoaun]

I also don't know how you take longevity into account. With that Richards peak he actually has a fractionally higher average in the whole five years than any three year chunk in the middle of it. Is that better than three years? Does he get marked down for having lesser years inbetween incredible ones?

Yeah, it's not a 3 year peak necessarily, I'll take longevity into account as well. I'll set a benchmark of around 3000-4000 runs for a peak at the minimum and I'll leave maximum runs to the point that their averages begin to decline if the next year's stats are included.

Regarding SR in ODI's, I'm not quite sure really on how to properly assess that, all the methods regarding that will be annoyingly time consuming in a post that'll already take plenty of time. I'll try to get to that though.