Virat Kohli vs Sachin Tendulkar: Stats reveal who the true ODI GOAT is | Analysis

It’s almost a generational debate. Who is the better batter in ODI cricket? The Millennials will swear by Tendulkar, the Gen Z will probably vouch for Kohli, and the Boomers may just throw in Viv Richards’ name in contention. It’s a difficult debate. The ODI game is completely different in different eras. The game that Greg Chappell and Glenn Turner played in the 70s may not even be in the same galaxy as the one Virat Kohli and David Warner play today. A lot has changed from rules of fielding restrictions, dimensions of grounds, and sizes of the bats used. To account for all that, one needs a system that analyses a player’s impact on their era.

How to compare ODI players across eras

Sample this: in the time that Viv Richards played, the top 5 batters of all teams had a collective strike rate of 64. In the last decade, that figure is close to 90. It’s quite literally apples vs genetically modified apples. The only way one can compare a player from a different era is to gauge how superior they were to their contemporaries and then compare it to how superior another player was to their era. It is not perfect, but it is a far better method than simply saying Kohli is better than Richards because he averages 58 while the latter does 47.

But first things first, this analysis is a comparative to analyse who has had a greater impact on the game from among Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli. But while doing this, one thing became clear – both players are simply vying for the second place in the ODI goat list. The numero uno spot quite clearly belongs to Viv Richards, the greatest ODI batter of all time.

Sachin vs Kohli: the more dominant player of their era

Sachin Tendulkar played ODIs from December 1989 to March 2012. Virat Kohli’s career began in August 2008 and is still ongoing. The pace of ODI cricket and the amount of runs scored has increased considerably. In Tendulkar’s time, the batting average of the top 5 batters (openers and middle order) of the full member teams was 33.88. In Kohli’s era, this has grown to 37.55, a 10% increase. Even sharper is the rise in strike rate, which has grown from 73.98 to 84.95 (15% rise). Comparing Tendulkar’s figures to corresponding figures of his time shows us that he was 32% more consistent and 16% quicker than the other batters of his time. Virat, on the other hand, has only been 10% quicker in terms of run scoring, but a mind-boggling 56% more consistent.

The figures make sense when you consider that Sachin mostly played as an opener and attacked more often from the beginning while Virat plays an anchor role for the team, which means he can be a bit slower but his job is to stay till the end. It is hard to separate the two based on this. The numbers do not differ much when one looks at their overseas numbers too. Both players are largely consistent across continents.

Kohli’s impeccable record in victories

Where Virat Kohli really races ahead is his contribution in team wins. In matches that India won (180 of them), Kohli has averaged just under 76 with the bat, scoring 42 centuries. In contrast, Sachin has averaged 56 in Indian wins (over 234 games) with 33 centuries. The numbers are impressive but almost left in the dust by Virat’s out-of-the-world consistency. In successful chases, Kohli is a different beast altogether, arguably the greatest finisher in the history of the game. In 127 successful chases, Tendulkar averaged 55 with 45 fifty-plus scores. Impressive feat! Kohli, on the other hand, averages a Bradmanesque 90 in 102 successful chases, crossing a half century in every second innings he batted. Even after accounting for the differences in eras, Kohli’s performance in successful chases (average of 90 and strike rate of 97) is miles ahead of the next best (Dhoni, De Villiers, and Tendulkar).

Was Tendulkar truly a lone warrior while Kohli has had greater support?

One thing that has been drilled into any Indian cricket fan is that Tendulkar carried the Indian team on his back for years. It has been said time and again that during his peak, he received little support from the rest of the team, which is why he could not win too many games for India. The 1996 World Cup is often cited as an example. Tendulkar, all of 22, top scored with 523 runs in 7 games. The next best from India was Navjot Singh Sidhu with 174 runs. That does paint quite a picture. It is true that there were several occasions when Tendulkar battled alone. In contrast, fans point out that Kohli has played alongside dominant ODI players like Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan, while also sharing the dressing room with seniors like Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni, and Tendulkar himself.

But then Sachin had support too. He played very little ODI cricket till 1993. The following year, he first came to open and soon became India’s best batter. But Mohammed Azharuddin was right there alongside him. Soon, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid joined the ranks. Five years after them, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag came in as Azhar left. This core stayed till 2008 when Ganguly retired (and was replaced by a 19-year-old Kohli).

Over the course of his career, Sachin Tendulkar contributed 24.4% of the top order’s runs and scored 38% of the total tons (49 out of 129). Virat Kohli, on the other hand, contributed 24.9% of the top order runs for his team and scored 37% of the total centuries (50 out of 135). These are eerily similar numbers that show that even though Kohli was part of a marginally better batting line up, he still outperformed them just as much as Sachin did with his teammates. Both got almost the same amount of support from their teammates over the course of their careers.

Did Kohli face ‘easier’ quality of bowling than Tendulkar?

Another argument often made in support of Tendulkar’s claim as the ODI goat is that he faced more quality bowlers than arguably any other player in the game’s history. After all, the man faced the likes of Akram, Waqar, Walsh, Ambrose, Donald, Pollock, McGrath, Lee, Warne, Muralitharan, Saqlain, Steyn, Malinga, and about a couple of dozen more world class bowlers. But the fact of the matter is that of all the bowling attacks Tendulkar faced, 54% had bowling averages under 30. For Virat Kohli, this figure is 51%. In fact, when batting against bowlers with averages under 25, Kohli has averaged higher than Tendulkar (54 to 44). The one thing in favour of Tendulkar is that he outperformed his teammates to a greater extent when faced against quality bowlers.

So then, who is the white ball GOAT?

After all this analysis, the question still remains as tricky to answer as it was before this exercise began. That is perhaps because Tendulkar and Kohli had different roles to fill for their teams. Tendulkar opened the innings, blunting the new ball, providing momentum and setting the base for the middle-order. In comparison, Kohli bats at 3, making sure the run rate ticks during the middle orders, navigating the spinners, and closing out the chases. Both have different utility to teams and pose different challenges for oppositions. If this analysis proves something, it’s that these two men are among the top 3 ODI batters of all time and among the first names for any all-time ODI XI.