Virat Kohli registered his 39th ODI victory as an Indian ODI captain on Thursday when his side defeated England in their own backyard by eight wickets and 59 balls to spare. Virat Kohli has achieved this feat in no time. The 29 year old has joined West Indian great Clive Lloyd and Australian legend Ricky Ponting with 39 victories after their first 50 ODIs as captains.
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In terms of overall win percentage for captains in ODI cricket after playing minimum 30 matches, Kohli tops the chart as of now. The former Indian captains, Sourav Ganguly and Mahendra Singh Dhoni who are termed as one of the better skippers that world cricket has ever witnessed, are way behind him on this list.
Here are the top five
Captain, Matches, Win percentage
Virat Kohli : 50, 79.59%
Clive Lloyd : 84, 77.71%
Ricky Ponting : 230, 76.14%
Hansie Cronje : 138, 73.7%
Michael Clarke : 74, 70.42%
Though its early days, Virat Kohli has had a great start to his career as a captain of India’s ODI side. But for him to maintain the top notch, he’ll need to keep winning at this rate for a long time. Ricky Ponting with 230 matches as captain under his belt, has to be considered the finest ever as of today with a win percentage of 76.14%.
Virat Kohli is an aggressive captain who likes to go for the kill straight away. Playing defensive cricket isn’t his cup of tea. Perhaps, presence of the big man behind stumps does a world of good to the Delhi boy. With MS Dhoni around he is never shy of expressing himself on the cricket field.
Virat Kohli would be keen to produce a whitewash against England in the three match ODI series. The second ODI will be played at Lord’s on Saturday.