How far does Kohli’s ODI acceleration go?

The view gaining ground is that Virat Kohli has never attacked ODI bowling like this. His strike rate in men’s ODIs over the past two years is 104.4, against 94.2 across his career. The acceleration is clear, and his latest hundred gives it a memorable expression.

There is substance behind the pace, too. Kohli’s batting average over those two years is 73.38, against 32.64 for top-seven batters in men’s ODIs over the same period. That is a formidable benchmark to clear while scoring faster than his career tempo. The case for celebrating this spell needs no claim about it being unprecedented.

The innings behind the argument

Against West Indies, his unbeaten 139 from 88 balls made the enthusiasm understandable. A substantial hundred delivered at that pace gives the aggression argument its strongest recent example.

His unbeaten 65 from 45 balls against South Africa also belongs in the discussion. The West Indies hundred has company among his recent attacking innings, which gives us reason to take the broader change in tempo seriously.

But a career strike rate blends different spells together. Beating that mark establishes acceleration against his overall standard; it does not establish that every earlier attacking spell was slower. The word unprecedented asks these innings to prove more than they do.

A stronger present-day claim

The contemporary comparison is emphatic. Kohli’s strike rate of 104.4 over the past two years sits against 84.7 for top-seven batters in men’s ODIs during that period. His quicker scoring stands comfortably above the wider batting benchmark.

Our ratings place him third among men’s ODI batters worldwide, worth about 8.5 runs a match more than an average player. That supports a substantial claim about his standing among current ODI batters.

Kohli is scoring faster than he usually has and making more runs while he does it, and India should want exactly that from him for the rest of this run. Calling it the most aggressive ODI batting of his career is the one step too far.