Captain Virat Kohli surpasses Sourav Ganguly

Virat Kohli is on a roll. Not only runs are flowing from his willow, but it is the captaincy of the current India skipper that has broken another record.

By notching up a 203-run win over England in the third Test that concluded today, Kohli has surpassed former India skipper and one of most successful India captains, Sourav Ganguly. By virtue of this victory, Kohli now has 22 Test victories under his belt in the 38 matches he led the team. Ganguly’s tally of wins is 21 in 49 Tests.

Though Kohli is still not close to India’s most successful skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s tally of 27 Test wins, he still has time and age both on his side to go past the former India captain. In terms of Test wins, Dhoni (27) leads the chart followed by Kohli (22), Ganguly (21), Mohammed Azharuddin (14), Sunil Gavaskar (9) and Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi (9).

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For the record, Kohli has led India in only 38 Tests and also has minimum number of losses in his kitty. The owner of 23 Test centuries now has seven losses in his credit which is lesser than all the other captains named above. Dhoni leads that chart too with 18 defeats during 60 Tests as skipper.

Ganguly (13), Azharuddin (14), Gavaskar (8) and Pataudi (19) have all lost more matches as skipper than Kohli so far. But the fact that he has 22 wins from 38 Tests is something laudable. If numbers are anything to go by, Kohli is now the second most successful captain of India with a better success rate than any other former captain.

Also, the 203-run win over England that brought the Indians back in contention in the ongoing series is ranked third for India in terms of biggest wins (by runs) against England. The 279-run victory in Headingly in 1986 under Kapil Dev and 246-run triumph in Vizag in 2016 are the top two.

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