Michael Vaughan sparks controversy by comparing Virat Kohli and Joe Root's Test stats: 'Morning, India'

As Joe Root continues to climb towards greatness, England fans and former players are reveling in the success of their beloved former Test captain. During the opening day of the 2nd Test against Sri Lanka, Root led England's impressive comeback, turning the score from 130/4 to 358/7 by stumps on Thursday. Not only did Root play a crucial role in the team's resurgence, but he also notched his 33rd Test century, surpassing all active Test cricketers and tying Alastair Cook for the most Test tons by an English batter. Root now stands ahead in the race, trailing only behind Kane Williamson (32), Steve Smith (32) and Virat Kohli (29) in terms of Test centuries.

The Fab Four of the last decade are still going strong, but as surprising as it may be, India's Kohli has fallen behind in the pecking order in terms of Test hundreds. He may be the leading century-maker in ODIs, in Tests, Kohli has some catching up to do as he takes the bottom-most place among all four former captains. At the same time, Kohli is the second-most capped player, with Root leading (144), and Smith and Williamson at 109 and 100 Tests respectively.

As these stats add to the intrigue of Root, Michael Vaughan, the former England captain, has done some number crunching of his own. Taking a dig at Indian fans with a 'good morning' message, Vaughan personally noted down some striking stats of Kohli and Root, comparing how the two stack up today. He may well have succeeded in his attempt to tease Virat's fanbase, since as of today, Root has superior numbers despite debuting more than a year after Kohli.

Numbers don't lie

Indian fans can take respite in the fact that Root has played 31 more Tests and batted in 72 more innings than Kohli, hence the gap in numbers is understandable. Be in terms of runs, strike-rate or average, Root trumps Kohli in all facets of Test cricket. With 12131 runs, Root is ahead of Kohli (8848) by 3290 runs and boasts a higher average (50.33) to Kohli's (49.15) – albeit by a small margin.

Root has a better strike-rate too, scoring at 56.70 compared to Kohli's 55.56. The margin of difference may not be much, but it still tilts in favour of the England great. Root has 64 half-centuries to Kohli's 30 and has hit more sixes (44) as compared to the Indian batting stalwart.

For the longest time, Root and Kohli were progressing neck-and-neck. In fact, Kohli was ahead of all three by quite some distance before a lean 16-month period impacted his scores drastically. Not only did Kohli go without a century between November of 2019 and March of 2022, but courtesy a horrible slump in form in the first-half of 2022, his average, for the first time in years, dropped below 50.

As it turns out, during this time, Kohli's contemporaries marched ahead of him, with Williamson, Smith and Root scoring centuries at a much higher frequency. As for runs, Kohli is third among the Fab Four, with Smith occupying the second position with 9685 and counting. Williamson, with 8743 is just a shade below Kohli.

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