Virat Kohli vs Steve Smith: Kohli’s flat NZ tours triggers the debate again

HIGHLIGHTS

• 1Virat Kohli’s top score of the ongoing tour of New Zealand is 51
• 2Virat Kohli managed just two runs before being caught by Ross Taylor
• 3Many fans tweeted that Steve Smith is better than Virat Kohli in Tests

Virat Kohli’s below-par tour continued when he nicked a wide delivery from debutant Kyle Jamieson to first slip on the opening day of the first Test between India and New Zealand in Wellington on Friday. The Indian captain, whose top score of the tour is 51, managed just two runs before being caught by Ross Taylor. It was the fifth time during the ongoing tour that Virat Kohli failed to reach 20. The top-ranked Test batsman’s abysmal outing even triggered a comparison debate on Twitter against Steve Smith. Many fans tweeted that Steve Smith is better in the longest format of the game as Virat Kohli can get runs only on flat tracks.

His last three-figure score came in the day-night Test against Bangladesh in Kolkata when he scored 136.

However, this is not the first lean patch of Kohli’s stellar career.

Between February to October 2014, Kohli had failed to score a hundred in 25 innings across formats. Before that, he had failed to hit a hundred in 24 consecutive innings between February to September 2011.

Overall, Kohli has scored 70 international hundreds as compared to Steve Smith’s 35.

However, the competition between the two batsmen is much tighter in the longest format as Kohli has 27 Test centuries, while Steve Smith is not far behind on 26.

Interestingly, when it comes to Test average, Steve Smith is way ahead of Virat Kohli.

Smith’s Test average is 62.84 as compared to Kohli’s 57.81.

In terms of ICC Test rankings for batsmen, Virat Kohli tops the table with 928 points while Steve Smith occupies the second spot with 911 points.