Will Kohli retire as a top 5 Indian batter in tests?

[Vijy]

When it comes to retirement, the great Vijay Merchant - about whom I have written more in pg. 1 or 2 of this thread - shared his thoughts on the subject, which remain as valid today as it was back then:

 

Edited December 31, 2024 by Vijy

[vvvslaxman]

30 minutes ago, Vijy said:

When it comes to retirement, the great Vijay Merchant - about whom I have written more in pg. 1 or 2 of this thread - shared his thoughts on the subject, which remain as valid today as it was back then:

 

 

 

It is a general rule for gracefully retiring. Many have shared about the moment they decided to retire. But Gilly's one stuck in my mind. He dropped a few easy catches in that 2008 series against India. He decided "time was up" almost immediately.  He was still good enough to play. But he quit  right after he noticed a performance drop. This is why i am infuriated with Vadapav. This vadapav never had anything called "peak" in Tests. Yet hung around as long as he could. Now he is htting absolute nadir. Yet shamelessly holding on to a spot with captaincy cover.

[Vijy]

7 minutes ago, vvvslaxman said:

 

 

It is a general rule for gracefully retiring. Many have shared about the moment they decided to retire. But Gilly's one stuck in my mind. He dropped a few easy catches in that 2008 series against India. He decided "time was up" almost immediately.  He was still good enough to play. But he quit  right after he noticed a performance drop. This is why i am infuriated with Vadapav. This vadapav never had anything called "peak" in Tests. Yet hung around as long as he could. Now he is htting absolute nadir. Yet shamelessly holding on to a spot with captaincy cover.

it is a well-known idea, yes, but was articulated for 1st time in the indian cricket context by merchant (though patsy hedren, etc had conveyed it in other countries).

[DeepSpace]

I can't rate Chutiyachokli very highly as a great batsman as he has some glaring technical deficiencies and lack of backfoot game. The way he got out in the 2nd innings is the same frucking way he has got out zillion of times in the past. He clearly has not fixed his technique during his career. The fact that he has struggled for so long (no other ATG has struggled this long; if he played for Eng, Aus or NZ, he would have been chucked out 3 years earlier) is because of his glaring technical deficiencies. Credit to him for still scoring runs despite this, but I am not big on him in any way. He is definitely not in my top 5.

 

1. SRT

2. Gavaskar

3. Dravid

4. Laxman (probably the MVP of the lot; scored in winning causes the most)

5. Sehwag/Vengsarkar/Vishwanath (can't decide; Sehwag was mostly a FTB, but a great one, but Vengsarkar and Vishy had better technique)

[Muloghonto]

2 hours ago, DeepSpace said:

I can't rate Chutiyachokli very highly as a great batsman as he has some glaring technical deficiencies and lack of backfoot game. The way he got out in the 2nd innings is the same frucking way he has got out zillion of times in the past. He clearly has not fixed his technique during his career. The fact that he has struggled for so long (no other ATG has struggled this long; if he played for Eng, Aus or NZ, he would have been chucked out 3 years earlier) is because of his glaring technical deficiencies. Credit to him for still scoring runs despite this, but I am not big on him in any way. He is definitely not in my top 5.

 

1. SRT

2. Gavaskar

3. Dravid

4. Laxman (probably the MVP of the lot; scored in winning causes the most)

5. Sehwag/Vengsarkar/Vishwanath (can't decide; Sehwag was mostly a FTB, but a great one, but Vengsarkar and Vishy had better technique)

At this point Kohli has definitely fallen outta the top 5 in the post 70s era for tests.

Lets see:
 

1. SRT, Gavaskar, Dravid & Sehwag are definitely ahead of him : the first 3 are automatically better than Kohli at this point in tests, while Sehwag is also easily ahead - people think of him as a FTB but the man was not as much of a FTB as people think he is : he did excellently in Australia, played 2 series in England - one where he averaged 40 and one where he sucked at the very end of his career and played again 2 series in NZ back when NZ produced watered greentops and no innings crossed 200 runs in any tests. He really only failed in South Africa, but South Africa was the ultimate test of pace in those days, where all our maharathis have significantly lower career averages in South Africa than anywhere else ( Including Dravid, Tendy,Laxman, etc).

Not to forget, Sehwag came with several X factors that i think rank him better than Kohli at this point :
a) he is an opener, yet averages more than Kohli b) he is a middle order bat who got shunted to opener due to lack of middle order spot, man never opened in first class cricket before he opened for India in tests !!  c) Sehwag provided an incomparable acceleration that even by today's standards are crazy - no opener even in matured T20 era averages 80 strike rate in tests like Sehwag and he did it in the days when 2.8-3.2 run rates were normal across tests.

 

2. So that leaves Laxman as his only challenger for the top 5 Indian batter spot ( and this is not even counting the likes of Merchant or Hazare, who may very well have creds to make the top 5 as well).

Well on paper Laxman's stats are worse- he has less runs, less average, way less centuries but its worth mention that Laxman was also not an opener who got forces to open in many cases, where despite one or two gem of an innings, he didnt do well.
But as a middle order batsman, he was often the rescue man, the glue that held the side together in times of collapse and in general, did well under pressure and took the extremely difficult and underrated task of test batting very well : seeing off the second new ball.

 

And yet, despite this, Laxman as a middle order batsman has 8000+ runs at an average shade higher than 48- which is actually higher than Kohli's average and he has always been a middle order batsman only.

So at this point, I would say Kohli who is a full 1 point behind Laxman in middle order average, is batting below Laxman and as of now, is out of the top 5 batsmen of India in test cricket for all time.

 

PS: He still remains in the top 3 - along with Sachu and MSD - as the best ODI batsman from India and possibly the world ever.

 

Edited January 1, 2025 by Muloghonto

[rkt.india]

10 hours ago, vvvslaxman said:

 

 

It is a general rule for gracefully retiring. Many have shared about the moment they decided to retire. But Gilly's one stuck in my mind. He dropped a few easy catches in that 2008 series against India. He decided "time was up" almost immediately.  He was still good enough to play. But he quit  right after he noticed a performance drop. This is why i am infuriated with Vadapav. This vadapav never had anything called "peak" in Tests. Yet hung around as long as he could. Now he is htting absolute nadir. Yet shamelessly holding on to a spot with captaincy cover.

Gilly was 37 so it was time anyway.

[Sean Bradley]

Let's focus on the first 3 words of your question first, Will Virat Kohli retire? Top 5 toh baad ki baat hai, pehle jaan chod do hamari pls

[Lord]

16 hours ago, Vijy said:

When it comes to retirement, the great Vijay Merchant - about whom I have written more in pg. 1 or 2 of this thread - shared his thoughts on the subject, which remain as valid today as it was back then:

 

 

Its a delicate thing. You don't wanna retire on top either as that means depriving your team of what you can offer above a newbie. It should be when your current output can be expected to be matched by your replacement like in Ashwin's case.

[vvvslaxman]

 

[vvvslaxman]

27 minutes ago, Lord said:

 

Its a delicate thing. You don't wanna retire on top either as that means depriving your team of what you can offer above a newbie. It should be when your current output can be expected to be matched by your replacement like in Ashwin's case.

 

We will never know whether they will match or not unless this guy is dropped for a period. One innings sample is not enough.  In Kohli's case it is like 5 years of drought. For his reputation more than one year was too much.

[Stan AF]

He's not even in top ten.

[Vijy]

3 hours ago, Lord said:

 

Its a delicate thing. You don't wanna retire on top either as that means depriving your team of what you can offer above a newbie. It should be when your current output can be expected to be matched by your replacement like in Ashwin's case.

it should be when the decline has just set in, i.e., shortly after when one senses it.

[Muloghonto]

20 hours ago, Vijy said:

it should be when the decline has just set in, i.e., shortly after when one senses it.

 

I disagree. A specialist position like wicketkeeper can afford this mentality, but for rest, i think it should be when decline is Kohli-esque and you are performing worse than what a random Ranji player would be expected to perform ( who i would expect to perform in the low-mid 30s average with the bat and Kohli is in the high 20s).

If you are a great, who declines to be very good, then i think you should continue and the perfect example was Viv Richards.

He spent the last decade of his career ( from age 29 to 39) as a 'good/very good' batsman and not a great one : he averages >50 in only 3 of those 10 years and overall averages just a shade under 44 in this chunk of his career. Which, even by 1980s standards is good/very good but not great.

But at the same time, he was a 39 year old batter, who was averaging 40 in his very last year as a test batter in the early 90s : is that good enough to carry on ? In most cases, absolutely - if you are averaging 40+ in tests without heavy padding vs minnows, you are most likely good enough to be in the team, whether you are a 5 year old or a 75 year old.

Viv for eg, could've ended the debate for who's the greatest batter of alltime by getting on that plane and going to South Africa in fall of 83 and not on the plane to India : he would've been banned by the WICB and then, gone down in history as the dude who scored over 4000 runs @ 59+ average by age 29-30. But the fact that he carried on another 10 years, definitely as one of the batsmen worthy of playing for his team, yet at a '1980s standard of good/very good but not great' average of 44 and while this may temper debates of how great he really is, it does give a valid basis for a player to carry on. 

The same can be said of Ponting - he wasnt great by the end of his career and in the last half a dozen years of his career, he was just decent. But he still did average 40+ with the bat during this period and a case can be made that he isnt holding up the show for anyone as Australia - or any other team- is unlikely to have all 4 middle order batsmen average 40+ in a six year window and there still may be another great player sitting in the wings who can do better.

 

Edited January 2, 2025 by Muloghonto

[Vijy]

46 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

 

I disagree. A specialist position like wicketkeeper can afford this mentality, but for rest, i think it should be when decline is Kohli-esque and you are performing worse than what a random Ranji player would be expected to perform ( who i would expect to perform in the low-mid 30s average with the bat and Kohli is in the high 20s).

If you are a great, who declines to be very good, then i think you should continue and the perfect example was Viv Richards.

He spent the last decade of his career ( from age 29 to 39) as a 'good/very good' batsman and not a great one : he averages >50 in only 3 of those 10 years and overall averages just a shade under 44 in this chunk of his career. Which, even by 1980s standards is good/very good but not great.

But at the same time, he was a 39 year old batter, who was averaging 40 in his very last year as a test batter in the early 90s : is that good enough to carry on ? In most cases, absolutely - if you are averaging 40+ in tests without heavy padding vs minnows, you are most likely good enough to be in the team, whether you are a 5 year old or a 75 year old.

Viv for eg, could've ended the debate for who's the greatest batter of alltime by getting on that plane and going to South Africa in fall of 83 and not on the plane to India : he would've been banned by the WICB and then, gone down in history as the dude who scored over 4000 runs @ 59+ average by age 29-30. But the fact that he carried on another 10 years, definitely as one of the batsmen worthy of playing for his team, yet at a '1980s standard of good/very good but not great' average of 44 and while this may temper debates of how great he really is, it does give a valid basis for a player to carry on. 

The same can be said of Ponting - he wasnt great by the end of his career and in the last half a dozen years of his career, he was just decent. But he still did average 40+ with the bat during this period and a case can be made that he isnt holding up the show for anyone as Australia - or any other team- is unlikely to have all 4 middle order batsmen average 40+ in a six year window and there still may be another great player sitting in the wings who can do better.

 

I wouldn't consider an average of 40+ to be a substantial decline. It is when an avg of 30 is sustained for a few years consecutively that one would call it thusly. I know it is a matter of semantics here

[R!TTER]

The bigger issue is with the pitches we produce at home, this *ing excuse of making result oriented pitches vs Oz/Eng or NZ for WTC was/is BS - we should be prepared to bat+bowl across 5 days to win them! This is why I've always balked at oversmart turnips who though "exploiting" home advantage is smart - our advantage across 7-8 decades of cricket has always been our batting why the * would you make it weaker for some no name random trophy  

Home or away home venue  Start of match date between 1 Jan 1950 and 31 Dec 2024  Grouped by team  Qualifications four wickets in an inns greater than or equal to 200  Ordered by bowling average (ascending) Overall figures Team Players Span Mat Inns Balls Runs Wkts BBI BBM Ave Econ SR 5 10   South Africa 181 1950-2024 192 1904 183399 84622 3253 9/113 13/144 26.01 2.76 56.3 136 18   Australia 254 1950-2024 347 3538 374514 168553 5925 8/24 13/148 28.44 2.70 63.2 248 38   England 341 1950-2024 429 4059 426596 198660 6789 10/53 19/90 29.26 2.79 62.8 276 36   India 238 1951-2024 286 2871 303743 130843 4418 10/74 16/136 29.61 2.58 68.7 212 42   Sri Lanka 142 1982-2024 158 1570 156900 74639 2513 9/51 14/184 29.70 2.85 62.4 133 31   Pakistan 200 1955-2024 169 1633 169639 76679 2536 9/56 14/116 30.23 2.71 66.8 112 26   West Indies 250 1953-2024 255 2753 278803 123205 3925 9/95 13/121 31.38 2.65 71.0 138 11   New Zealand 227 1951-2024 225 2075 223510 105253 3305 7/23 12/149 31.84 2.82 67.6 116 11

Home or away home venue

Start of match date between 1 Jan 1950 and 31 Dec 2024

Grouped by team

Qualifications scores of fifty or more greater than or equal to 500

Ordered by batting average (descending)

Overall figures

Team	Players	Span	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	100	50	0
Australia	254	1950-2024	347	5925	836	183130	380	35.98	416	839	549
India	238	1951-2024	286	4663	667	138385	319	34.63	292	643	471
Pakistan	200	1955-2024	169	2711	405	79805	329	34.60	192	338	264
Sri Lanka	142	1982-2024	158	2633	365	77577	374	34.20	170	347	262
South Africa	181	1950-2024	192	3279	436	92141	275	32.40	183	430	315
England	341	1950-2024	429	7374	964	203149	333	31.69	393	946	703
West Indies	250	1953-2024	255	4423	608	120284	400*	31.52	241	528	459
New Zealand	227	1951-2024	225	3925	537	100615	302	29.69	181	455	458

[Vijy]

On 12/31/2024 at 9:38 PM, Muloghonto said:

At this point Kohli has definitely fallen outta the top 5 in the post 70s era for tests.

Lets see:
 

1. SRT, Gavaskar, Dravid & Sehwag are definitely ahead of him : the first 3 are automatically better than Kohli at this point in tests, while Sehwag is also easily ahead - people think of him as a FTB but the man was not as much of a FTB as people think he is : he did excellently in Australia, played 2 series in England - one where he averaged 40 and one where he sucked at the very end of his career and played again 2 series in NZ back when NZ produced watered greentops and no innings crossed 200 runs in any tests. He really only failed in South Africa, but South Africa was the ultimate test of pace in those days, where all our maharathis have significantly lower career averages in South Africa than anywhere else ( Including Dravid, Tendy,Laxman, etc).

Not to forget, Sehwag came with several X factors that i think rank him better than Kohli at this point :
a) he is an opener, yet averages more than Kohli b) he is a middle order bat who got shunted to opener due to lack of middle order spot, man never opened in first class cricket before he opened for India in tests !!  c) Sehwag provided an incomparable acceleration that even by today's standards are crazy - no opener even in matured T20 era averages 80 strike rate in tests like Sehwag and he did it in the days when 2.8-3.2 run rates were normal across tests.

 

2. So that leaves Laxman as his only challenger for the top 5 Indian batter spot ( and this is not even counting the likes of Merchant or Hazare, who may very well have creds to make the top 5 as well).

Well on paper Laxman's stats are worse- he has less runs, less average, way less centuries but its worth mention that Laxman was also not an opener who got forces to open in many cases, where despite one or two gem of an innings, he didnt do well.
But as a middle order batsman, he was often the rescue man, the glue that held the side together in times of collapse and in general, did well under pressure and took the extremely difficult and underrated task of test batting very well : seeing off the second new ball.

 

And yet, despite this, Laxman as a middle order batsman has 8000+ runs at an average shade higher than 48- which is actually higher than Kohli's average and he has always been a middle order batsman only.

So at this point, I would say Kohli who is a full 1 point behind Laxman in middle order average, is batting below Laxman and as of now, is out of the top 5 batsmen of India in test cricket for all time.

 

PS: He still remains in the top 3 - along with Sachu and MSD - as the best ODI batsman from India and possibly the world ever.

 

I think Merchant has a real case, as I wrote in my post on pg. 1 in case you are interested in checking it out. And in overseas conditions, Jimmy should be in top 5 as well - man was grossly mishandled by selectors.

[Majestic]

I will put him ahead of Sehwag and Laxman because those two played in era of flatties of 2000s while Kohli has been miserably treated in era of bowling more conducive to Ashwin, Jadeja at home while overseas it has usually been balanced except SA maybe.

 

I also believe that Kohli would have fared better if he got to play on Pakistani wickets where Sehwag batted like Bradman. Sehwag would have done better than Kohli in Asian conditions though no questions on that. But overseas, he would have done worse on these pitches that Kohli has played than Sehwag did in his own era.

 

VVS was an excellent pressure player but he lacks the conversion of tons which top players usually have.

[Muloghonto]

1 hour ago, Vijy said:

I wouldn't consider an average of 40+ to be a substantial decline. It is when an avg of 30 is sustained for a few years consecutively that one would call it thusly. I know it is a matter of semantics here

well averaging 44 after averaging 60 is like a 16 point decline - thats substantial. its like a 40% drop in output - significant.

 

[Vijy]

4 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

well averaging 44 after averaging 60 is like a 16 point decline - thats substantial. its like a 40% drop in output - significant.

 

I was thinking more of how a 40+ avg is reasonable for top 5 batters in most eras, whereas low 30s is not. In that sense, it is not bad to have 40+

[Lord]

27 minutes ago, Majestic said:

I will put him ahead of Sehwag and Laxman because those two played in era of flatties of 2000s while Kohli has been miserably treated in era of bowling more conducive to Ashwin, Jadeja at home while overseas it has usually been balanced except SA maybe.

 

I also believe that Kohli would have fared better if he got to play on Pakistani wickets where Sehwag batted like Bradman. Sehwag would have done better than Kohli in Asian conditions though no questions on that. But overseas, he would have done worse on these pitches that Kohli has played than Sehwag did in his own era.

 

VVS was an excellent pressure player but he lacks the conversion of tons which top players usually have.

 

If home pitches are so terrible for batting, how have  Jadeja/Ashwin themselves batted well here? They are much lesser bats ofcourse. Guys like Pant, Pujara ofcourse have done better too. 

 

Sehwag sure feasted on some pattas, but had much more impact due to his SR. 

 

VVS couldn't convert because he batted so low. '

 

Kohli had an incredible peak but is now getting out same way for years now. That can't be attributed to pitches alone.