London: India skipper Virat Kohli has been named in the list of five cricketers of the decade, announced by the Wisden Cricketers' Almanac.
Along with Kohli, the other four cricketers are Proteas duo of Dale Steyn and AB de Villiers, Australia's Steve Smith and women's all-rounder Ellyse Perry.
"He is genius has been to rise, time and again, to the challenge. Between the end of the England tour in 2014 and the second Test against Bangladesh at Kolkata in November, Kohli averaged 63, with 21 hundreds and 13 fifties," Wisden wrote about Kohli.
"It left him with a unique set of statistics - the only batsman to average at least 50 in all three international formats. Even Steve Smith was moved to remark recently that there is no one quite like him. In many ways, there isn't. Since the retirement of Sachin Tendulkar and the gradual waning of MS Dhoni, no cricketer in the world has operated under such daily pressure as Kohli, " it added.
In the past decade, Kohli has hoarded 7,202 runs in Tests including 27 hundreds, while in the shorter formats the Indian skipper has amassed 11,125 runs in ODIs and 2,633 runs in T20s.
In 2019, Kohli scored 2,370 across formats at an average of 64.05. It was the fourth consecutive time that the 31-year-old aggregated 2000-plus runs in a calendar year.
Kohli, who averages more than 50 in all formats, has already amassed 70 international hundreds and is only behind Ricky Ponting (71) and Sachin Tendulkar (100).
He is third in the list of leading run-scorers of all time with 21,444 runs, behind Ponting (27,483) and Tendulkar (34,357).
The Indian skipper has already been named as the captain of Wisden's Test team of the decade. The Indian run-machine also finds a spot in the Wisden ODI team of the decade alongside MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma and others.(UNI)