For the first time in ten years, Virat Kohli falls out of the top twenty in the ICC Men’s Test Batting Rankings.

For the first time since 2014, Virat Kohli, who was sixth in the ICC Men’s Test Batting Rankings prior to the IND vs. NZ series, is no longer in the top 20.

For the first time in a decade, Virat Kohli fell out of the top 20 in the ICC Men’s Test Batting Rankings. After his poor batting performance persisted in the just concluded India vs. New Zealand Test series, which India lost 0-3, Kohli touched the 10-year-old low. In the history of Test cricket, India suffered their first-ever 3-0 home Test loss.

Prior to the IND vs. NZ series, Virat Kohli was placed sixth in the ICC Men’s Test Batting Rankings; he is currently in 22nd place. Kohli fell two spots to eighth place following the first Test, and he was ranked 13th following the second IND vs. NZ Test. However, Kohli fell to number 22 in the Test batting rankings following the third and final IND vs. NZ Test.

The former India skipper had one of his poorest performances in a home Test series when he was unable to score 93 runs in six innings at an average of 15.50 with one half-century in the IND vs. NZ series.

On Wednesday, Kohli celebrated his 36th birthday. In December 2014, he was last excluded from the ICC’s top 20 Test bats. Following a challenging tour of England in which he amassed just 134 runs in five Test matches at an average of just 13.4, Kohli saw a decline.

In the ICC Test rankings, Kohli fell to 21st place in August 2014 and remained there till India’s subsequent series. But he jumped to 16th place and started a steady ascent after hitting double hundreds in the 2014 Adelaide Test. Despite briefly dropping to 20th place in 2016 and 2023, he has stayed above that position up to this day. Kohli was in the top 5 every time from November 2016 to August 2021. After dropping out of the top 10 in March 2022, he was back in sixth place in January 2024.

The only two Indian batsmen ranked in the top 10 of the ICC Men’s Test Batting Rankings are Rishabh Pant and Yashasvi Jaiswal.