How Good is Virat Kohli?
How good is Virat Kohli according to data and statistics? Is he a match-winner or a selfish batsman? Is he an all-rounded batsman or just a home track bully? And if he’s worthy of being called the best batsman of the era, then how to get him out? All with the eye of data.
Introduction
The World was introduced to a boy named Virat Kohli on August 18, 2008, in a One Day International between India and Sri Lanka being played at Dambulla, Sri Lanka. The first time they witnessed this soon-to-be wonder boy was for a mere 30 minutes and brief innings of 12 runs. However, little did they know that this 20-year-old will soon rule the batting domain in World Cricket and will retain the throne for quite some time.
Aim of this Analysis
The entire cricketing World agrees that Virat Kohli is one of the most decorated players since the sport ‘Cricket’ emerged. However, there’s a dire need as to why players like him are the best at what they do. So to do that, 5thUmpire will dig deep into his statistics and use this data to analyze and understand what makes him almost perfect at making that hand-sewn cricket ball race away towards the boundary almost every time. 5thUmpire will use python — a programming language to understand his statistics and deduce insights and conclusions about his way of playing with the data we have. The World today heavily relies on data-driven insights on almost every level to be able to strategize in the best way possible. So without any further delays, let’s start our journey to understand why Virat Kohli rules the cricketing World today.
Virat’s Batting Statistics
Virat Kohli has played 251 matches since his debut in 2008. Initially, he was tried at different batting positions within the Indian squad, however, with time he emerged as a pure one-down batsman who displayed the ability to settle down quickly, rotates strike efficiently, converts loose deliveries into boundaries, and convert his scores into bigger ones.
As of now, Virat Kohli has scored a mammoth grand total of 12040 Runs in 251 matches in his ODI career averaging at over 59 runs per innings. But what we’re interested in is how he got there and how he performed in different conditions, against different oppositions, and in different situations.
We start off by analyzing Virat’s Run distribution against each opposition he’s played with. We visualize his total runs against each team using the all-time favorite — barplot.
Insights
Virat has dominated West Indies and Sri Lanka the most by scoring 2325 and 2220 runs in a span of 12 years against these sides
However, as cricket enthusiasts, you and I both know that the total runs certainly vary with the number of matches you play. A player who has played 100 more matches than the other will certainly score more runs as a batsman. So how do we approach this more efficiently? YES! We study the averages he has against each side to really know how consistent and accurate he is against each side.
Insights:
· Virat has maintained an average of above 50 runs against 9 out the above mentioned 12 teams
· This shows that Virat’s performance is not subject to the side he plays against. He’s pretty dominant against each side he plays against
· He has an average of 72 runs against the two times World Champion — West Indies whereas a massive average of 75.5 runs against his neighboring country — Bangladesh
· He is dominant against competitive sides like New Zealand, Australia, and England with averages of above 40 runs against each one of them
5thUmpire will now dig deep into studying the level of consistency Virat has depicted in his ODI career. We visualized through line plots how Virat’s cumulative runs have emerged over time in his career.
Insights:
· The line plot shows a pretty consistent upward trend in his total runs against the number of matches he played
· Except for a few dips in his entire career, he has consistently performed
Before we define relationships between different variables that are put to use, we will examine how much each of these variables depends on one another. 5thUmpire evaluated the correlations between the scored runs, strike rates, Balls faced in order to understand their reliance and dependence on one another.
Insights:
· The correlation between Runs scored and the balls faced is high on a scale of 1
· This shows that they’re highly dependent on one another
· Similarly, a low correlation between Runs scored and the Innings (1st innings setting a target or 2nd innings while chasing) they were scored in reflects that scoring is almost indifferent of which innings the batsman batted in
· The strike rate is well related to the Runs scored
We’re aware of how important it is for a player to be consistent in ODIs. Although you’re expected to score consistently, this doesn’t mean you have all the time; the team requires you to play swift innings in this limited over format to assist in setting up a bigger target or help to chase one. We compare how Virat’s average evolved in his career in comparison with how his strike rate varied over time.
Insights:
· Virat’s average experienced some variations in the earlier stages of his career but after 50 matches, his average has settled down to less noticeable variations and it has only one up ever since.
· With an average of almost 50 in his first 50 matches, he consistently played bigger innings to boost his average to almost 60 runs as of now
· Moreover, this consistency does not come at the cost of playing a slow inning, Virat’s Strike Rate is as efficient as his average ranging in at over 90 runs per 100 balls as of now
· A one-down batsman who has the ability to score 60 runs in every match at a strike rate of 90 runs will undoubtedly be a threat to the opposition
Cricket today has evolved to a great extent as compared to the past century or so. The ODIs today are high-scoring games with every team well equipped with batsmen who are able to slog the white seaming ball out of the park. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to examine how effective Virat’s contributions have been for Team India throughout the course of his career.
We use our statistical datasets to analyze the number of matches won, lost, or drawn by Team India in which Virat Kohli scored at least a half-century to understand the effectiveness of his innings in leading India to victory.
Insights:
· In matches where Virat scored at least 50 runs, India has won over 70 matches which proportions to over 65%wins
· This depicts that Virat indeed is a match-winner. His swift innings contributes to India’s victory in a certainly noticeable fashion
To further interpret this data, we see how his averages turn out in matches won and lost by Team India.
Insights:
· Virat’s average peaks at 77.25 runs in matches where India emerges victorious with an average of 36.0 runs in matches lost by India
· This truly reflects the correlation between his performance and India’s likelihood of standing tall in the ODI match
Moving on, we now study the extent of adaptability in Virat’s batting over the course of 12 years. The adaptability in batting highly depends on the weather conditions, the type of pitches, the pressure from spectators, and the ability to absorb pressure in intense situations.
In the 21st century, the frequency of playing cricket has increased in every part of the World due to the emergence of domestic leagues, first-class cricket, and small-scaled leagues. This has allowed the players to play more in their HOME conditions and pitches and thus, play better on home pitches. This at times leaves them flustered and surprised when they play on venues with differing conditions and pitches. This is when adaptability comes into play.
We intend to look into Virat’s credentials in different parts of the World with different weather conditions all across the year, different pitches, different types of balls being played, and the type of spectators in the match.
We took the aid of Virat’s records, manually sorted them into Home and Away records, and further manipulated them to extract more insights from them. The bar plots show a comparison of his average both at Home and Away venues.
Insights:
· Virat has an average of 60.81 at Home and 58.33 at Away Venues
· This reflects that Virat is a highly competitive player who adapts to pretty much every situation varying from venue to venue
· This has allowed him to have an away average which as competitive as his home average. This is truly unbelievable considering how the performances of players vary frequently with the part of the World they play in
Virat Kohli has played in almost every country throughout the World that hosts international cricket. However, Pakistan is one exception where he is yet to play an international match. Let’s pray together that his happens as quickly as possible.
The scatter plot below shows how his strike rates and averages vary from country to country that he plays in.
Insights:
· Virat’s scatterplot shows that he has dominated Bangladesh’s cricketing conditions the most with a massive average of 80.83 and a quick pace of playing with a strike rate of 100.2
· He has maintained an average of over 50 runs in almost every country with strike rates ranging from 80 to 100
· This shows his adaptability in every type of condition
· However, his average in Sri Lanka lies below 50 runs being the only country where he scores an average of 48 runs at a strike rate of 85.94
We visualized Virat’s Runs distribution based on Home or Away and the opposition he played against. The heat map below shows the distribution of runs and reflects the correlation between both variables.
Insights:
· Virat’s bat has extracted the most runs (1668) against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka itself which is venue away from Home for Virat Kohli
To make things more interesting, we show you the extent of growth and dominance that Virat has shown in different parts of the World he has played in. We visualized a World Heat map of the runs he has scored in every country he has played in. This map includes countries like Australia, New Zealand, England, Bangladesh, West Indies, Sri Lanka, U.A.E, South Africa, and India itself.
Insights:
· The color shading depicts the runs scored by Virat in every country he has played in
The 5thUmpire has now examined Virat Kohli’s consistency and his adaptability on the basis of different conditions he has played in. Our insights reflect that Virat truly is a match-winner and India heavily relies on his performance to seal the victory.
However, we also wish to examine what makes him vulnerable. What can the opposition captain do to get him out as soon as possible? You need not wait any further since we’ve got you covered.
We analyze the dismissal data of Virat Kohli to determine the ideal bowler and situation to get him out!
We used Virat’s stats to sort and organize them for our analysis of Virat’s dismissals.
We begin by analyzing the frequency of each type of dismissal throughout Virat’s ODI career. A grouped bar-plot represents the number of times he has been dismissed a certain way both in 1st and in 2nd innings.
Insights:
· Virat has been dismissed 165 times by being caught throughout his career
· This accounts for over 55% of his total dismissals in ODIs
· This reflects that Virat is more likely to play a wrong shot that gets the bowler to grasp his scalp
Now we wish to examine the range of runs where he’s most likely to get out based on his career stats until now.
Insights:
· The most he has been dismissed (53 times) is within the range 0–9 runs at a rate of 26%
· We assume that the player plays a more aggressive and risky inning after crossing the 50 runs mark, thus, making him more vulnerable towards getting out. Therefore, we exclude the dismissals between 50–89 runs
· This tells us that Virat is most vulnerable in the first 10 runs of his match innings reflecting that the captain of the bowling side can strategize and invest their bowling resources to their fullest when Virat is still hanging in single figures
We now enter the most interesting part of this analysis. This study is based on a comparison between Virat Kohli’s dismissal and averages against right and left arm pacers and spinners.
The approach is to find the type of bowler against which Virat has a relatively lower batting average and higher number of dismissals i.e., choose the bowler against which the biggest difference in dismissals and average occurs.
A scatter plot is used to show this analysis.
Insights:
· We interpret the graph by comparing the average per inning with the number of times dismissed by a particular type of bowler
· We notice Virat’s average against Right arm pacers to differentiate significantly from the total number of times he has been dismissed by a right-arm pacer
· This means we can understand that Virat is more vulnerable against right-arm pacers as compared to left-arm pacers or spinners
Moving on, we further explore the types of dismissals of Virat Kohli off right-arm pacers throughout his career.
Insights:
· 84% of the times he has been caught when dismissed by a right-arm pacer
· This shows that he’s likely to play a poor shot against a right-arm pacer as compared to getting bowled or leg before wicket
Now that we have established that Virat is more vulnerable against right-arm pace bowlers, we now further notice that most of those dismissals are catches. We take this analysis further by studying the positions where he gets caught more often against bowlers.
We do this by totaling the number of times he has been caught in different parts of the field when he’s at a score below 50. We do this because we’ve laid the assumption that a player is more likely to play a risky shot after crossing 50 runs so as to accelerate innings and score more runs.
Insights:
· Out of 92 dismissals when under 50 runs scored, 35 were caught behind contributing to around 40% of all catch dismissals
· This means Virat Kohli is more likely to play towards the off looking to cut away towards a point or third man and may leave a leading edge towards the keeper, slip, or even gully
5thUmpire’s Conclusion:
To get Virat Kohli out, the first thing you need to do is to use your best Right Arm Pace bowler. Once you do that, set a tempting field in the cover, point, and third man region for the batsman so as to lure him into driving or cutting the ball. Make sure to plant at least two slips and a fielder at point. Once you do that, have a word with your bowler, discuss the bracket where he needs to pitch the ball. If the bowl is swinging in the air, he might as well pitch it up and swing it away from Kohli’s blade to get an outside edge. However, if the pitch doesn’t do much for the bowler, target your length in the good length area that may be slightly fuller, and make sure that your line is far from Virat’s body, that is where he can make a mistake. Pitch the ball in the right area outside off stump to lure him into cutting the ball and hopefully getting a kiss of his bat directing the ball in the hands of the wicket-keeper or the slip fielders.
What parts of the analysis do you agree on?
What would you rate Virat Kohli as a match-winner?
What would you rate Virat Kohli as a versatile player?
Which Bowler would you put on against Virat Kohli as a captain?
Which next player would you like to analyze through a data lens?
Drop your remarks in the comments below.
