The ICC updated the T20 ranking system on Wednesday. With this, Virat Kohli, who retired from this format in 2024, has set a unique record. He became the world's first cricketer to achieve more than 900 rating points in all three formats.
Virat's best rating point was 897 in the T20, which has now increased to 909. He scored these points in 2014, which increased after the ranking system was updated. Virat has achieved 937 rating points in the Test in 2018 and 909 rating points in ODIs.
Virat also retired from Test cricket on May 12 this year. He has not retired from ODIs, whose batting rankings he currently ranks fourth.
Achieved the third best rating in T20 history On June 29, 2024, Virat scored 76 against South Africa in the T20 World Cup final. The team won, then Virat retired from T20I. The ICC makes some changes to its ranking system every year. This changes the rankings of many players. With this, Virat's points increased from 897 to 909, making it a record of more than 900 rating points in the shortest format.
Virat had 897 rating points on September 7, 2014. Kohli has also been number-1 batter for 1202 days in this format. After scoring 909 points, he became the third batter to achieve the best rating points in T20 history. England's David Malan is in first place with 919 points and India's Suryakumar Yadav is second with 912 rating points.
After the ICC ranking update, Virat has made a record of becoming number-1 T20 batter for 1202 consecutive days. No player in the world has been on the No.1 ranking for longer than that.
In 2018, he became number 1 together in all three formats Virat Kohli became the No.1 Better in Test format for the first time in 2018. He then scored 593 runs in England. After this tour, Virat became the No.1 Test Better with 937 points. During this time, Virat also got 909 rating points in ODI.
During his best form in 2018, Virat also set a record of becoming number-1 ranking batter in all three formats together. Apart from Kohli, only former Australian captain Ricky Ponting has been the number-1 batter at the same time in all three formats. Apart from these two, only Australia's Matthew Hayden and Jasprit Bumrah of India were able to become the number-1 player in all three formats. However, Hayden and Bumrah became the number-1 player in all three formats at different times.
Virat Kohli could not score 10,000 runs in the Test, but in 2020 the ICC made him captain of the decade of the decade.
Is Virat the best player in the world? After the T20 ranking update, there is a question again, is Virat Kohli the best all format player in the world? If we find the answer in the statistics, Virat has scored 14181 in ODI, 4188 in T20I and 9230 in Test. He is the 19th top scorer in the Test, but the third top run in ODI and T20. If Virat becomes a top scorer in any single format, he can definitely reach the top of the race to become the best player of all format.
On the other hand, if we look at the ICC rankings, the Better with the 11th rating point in the Virat Test history. It is the third best ranking batter in the T-20 and the sixth best ranking batter in ODI. He has jointly scored 82 centuries in all three formats. Which is the highest after Sachin Tendulkar. No Indian could get a better rating point than Virat in the ICC rankings. Sachin has never crossed the 900 rating point in any format.
Is Virat the best player of all formats or not? The ICC has definitely answered this from its rankings.
Image Credit: Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).