Stats: Virat Kohli scores his 15th Test century as captain

Virat Kohli has ticked almost all the boxes in his 10-year International career as he began the Test series against England with a brilliant century. The 29-year-old was under pressure from the critics after a disastrous tour to England in 2014 where he managed to score just 134 runs across ten innings in the five-match Test series. He answered one and all by scoring a brilliant 149 in his first outing as the Indian skipper in a Test match in England, 15 runs more than what he managed on the entire tour last time.

His 149-run knock came off 225 balls with 22 fours and a six which helped India reduce the deficit to just 13 runs. The visitors lost half their side on 100 and were reeling at 182/8 before he shared crucial partnerships with Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav. A 37-run stand for the 9th wicket took Kohli’s individual score to 97 before he diminished the deficient producing a 57-run 10th wicket partnership with Umesh. In this process, he brought up his 22nd century in Test cricket.

Kohli has scored 15 of his 22 Test tons as captain which is already a record for India. He is currently levelled at No.3 with three other players in the list of most centuries in Test cricket as captain. Graeme Smith and Ricky Ponting scored 25 and 19 centuries respectively while leading their countries. Australian captains Allan Border, Steve Waugh and Steve Smith all scored exactly 15 centuries in their Test careers while leading the Aussies.

The masterpiece of Kohli as captain has been his conversion rate in this format. Of the 58 innings he has batted in this format while leading India, he got fifty-plus scores on 21 instances. However, he went on to make three figures scores on 15 occasions. In fact, Kohli ended up scoring double centuries on six occasions out of the 15 hundreds. Even in the Birmingham Test, he fell one short of 150, the lowest of his last 12 Test 100s.

Most centuries as captain in Test cricket:

(Stats as on August 1, 2018)

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