Virat Kohli, the cricketer of the decade?

Virat Kohli, the name is not famous at the start of this decade. Yes, he was young, fearless, adamant, focussed but he was not considered as the next Sachin Tendulkar of India. Let's see how he made such an impact over the years and why he deserves to be the cricketer of this decade. I feel that 5 key aspects made him the cricket superstar. Let's walk through one by one,

Consistency

The prime factor of Virat's success is his consistent form. Thanks to Dhoni who trusted Virat's ability, gave few chances irrespective of his performance and groomed him over the year. In simple words, he started doing what Sachin Tendulkar did for India over the years. He is scoring irrespective of the playing condition, opponent bowlers, and crowd support. He is the one and the only player to have a 50+ average across all formats of cricket.

Improvement

This quality differentiate Virat from other cricketers! But, if you had observed his career as a batsman, he wasn't performed consistently in his early days. But, one thing he did consistently was to improve himself whenever he had a chance.

The iconic one was, when James Anderson of England, exposed a weakness in his technique by bowling outside off stump and dismissed multiple times in the series. Before India toured England the next time, Virat worked on his technique and became the highest run-scorer in the next series.

One more interesting stat to demonstrate his improvement is, He didn't cross 120+ in his first 7 centuries. In the next 4 centuries, he started to make 140+ scores. In the next 6 centuries, he crossed the 200 runs mark 4 times. The best example of the improvement in his career!

Run machine and match-winner

Virat scored more than 21000 runs in this decade and it is the highest score in any decade. The closest competitor has scored 5000 less than him. This shows the dominance he had over the bowler in this decade. There are many matches where India had a solid partnership in the middle overs only because of his batting.

He is an expert in building a partnership and set a tone for the power hitters/finishers to go and play freely at the death overs. From the opponent's perspective, his wicket is the most wanted one. He made such an impact over the years with his performance.

Captaincy

It's not easy to take up the captaincy after a player like Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The expectation level was so high and I can strongly say he has achieved a lot of good things through his captaincy. Captaincy is a feather in a cap for Virat. It's also notable to say, his performance as a batsman is improved after he became a captain. He loves to take responsibility and perform under pressure. The major thing to note is many legends of the game were not able to handle captaincy and their performance as a player is impacted because of this additional burden.

Fitness

He is one of the fittest cricketers ever played cricket. His fielding is above the par level at any position. One of the important reasons for his batting achievement is his Fitness ( He himself revealed in one of the interviews). He was able to convert most of the 1's to 2's and 2's to 3's with his ability to run between wickets. Since the scoreboard keeps ticking, he doesn't have to play a risky shot to score runs.

Overall, he is a complete player who can bat, bowl occasionally, field, captain for the team. He has made several run-outs which turned to be a match-winning moment several times.

In my point of view, other players not even stand close to being elected as the player of the decade other than Virat Kohli!

Thanks for your time! Cheers!