Virat Kohli is a force unparalleled in T20 World Cup cricket.

Despite not having played in the first three iterations of the World Cup and ranking just 26th in terms of T20 World Cup appearances, he is the highest run scorer, has more scores of 50 and above and has a higher average than anyone else in history (min. two tournaments). His teammate, Rohit Sharma, is the leading appearance maker in the competition with 38 caps to his name having first played in the T20 World Cup in the first edition in 2007. Kohli has played 12 games fewer, and yet has scored over 150 runs more.

In total, from 26 matches and 24 innings, Kohli has scored 1,091 runs at an average of 83.92 and a strike-rate of 131.60. He also has a scarcely believable 13 scores of above fifty meaning he has reached a half-century in exactly half of his T20 World Cup innings.

He is one of only two players to have scored more than a 1,000 runs in T20 World Cups, with the other being Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene who has batted on eight more occasions than Kohli. Kohli is also the only player in history to have won Player of the Tournament on two occasions, doing so in 2014 and 2016.

Kohli’s average of 83.92 is all the more impressive when it is factored in that it is without qualification of a minimum number of innings. The highest average in T20 World Cup history belongs to Matthew Hayden who averaged 88.33, but he batted on only six occasions in total. Of the top ten highest averages in T20 World Cup history, Kohli is one of only two players to have batted on more than ten occasions, the other being the tenth ranked Michael Hussey, who averaged 54.62 from his 16 innings between 2007 and 2012.

His record number of half-centuries is also particularly impressive. His thirteen scores of fifty or more puts him four ahead of Chris Gayle and Rohit Sharma who are tied for second place with nine half-centuries apiece.

And it isn’t just the T20 World Cup that Kohli excels in, but all major tournaments. In ten T20 Asia Cup appearances, he has an average of 85.80 with one century and three fifties. He is a player born for the biggest of occasions.

And there was no better example of this than Kohli’s innings against Pakistan in this World Cup, a miraculous knock that saw India win from needing 28 off 8 balls and 15 off 4, with Kohli at the heart of it and hitting one of the great shots in recent memory in front of over 90,000 people at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

But it is far from the only time in T20 World Cup cricket that Kohli has risen to the occasion for India. Of his other 12 scores of fifty or more, two in particular standout as being among his greatest innings.

The first came in the 2014 semi-final, where India needed 174 to beat a South Africa side containing Dale Steyn. Kohli blasted 72 not out off 44 deliveries to take his side home with five balls to spare and to a six-wicket win.

Incredibly, Kohli would play an almost carbon copy innings in the following World Cup in 2016, where against an Australian side who had put 160 on the board, Kohli scored over half of India’s runs as he finished on 82 not out off just 51 balls as India once again won by six wickets with five balls remaining. It was an innings that Kohli has ranked in his top-three of all time with the win putting India through to the semi-finals despite only one other India player (Yuvraj Singh) managing to reach 20.

However, despite Kohli’s dominance in the T20 World Cup, it remains a trophy that has eluded him. The closest he has come with India being in 2014 where they lost in the final to Sri Lanka. But, of course, that wasn’t without Kohli’s best efforts as he scored 77 off 58 in India’s modest total of 130-4. The question is, will they go one better this time around?

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