Virat Kohli closing in on Sourav Ganguly’s record for Test wins as captain

Sri Lanka’s tour of India gets underway this week, with the schedule including three Tests, thee ODIs and three T20Is. The Tour begins with the Test series, and the two squads were announced at the weekend. Eden Gardens in Kolkata is the venue for the first match, which begins on Thursday.

Team India is currently on a run of eight consecutive Test series wins, all of which have come under the captaincy of Virat Kohli. His record as Test captain is an impressive 19 wins out of 29 games, and it’s likely that he’ll improve that record even further during Sri Lanka’s visit.

According to the cricket betting markets, the hosts are firm favourites to win the upcoming Test series. They’re as short as 1/6 in most places, which is perhaps no surprise given their recent form. Even the 3-0 victory is only 7/5, suggesting that no-one is giving the Sri Lankans much chance at all.

If India do manage a whitewash, Kohli will surpass Sourav Ganguly’s record for the number of Test wins as captain. He’ll have done it in much fewer games, too, as Ganguly’s overall record was 21 wins in 49 games. Kohli can beat that in just 32 games.

Next milestone

The next milestone for Kohil will then be to beat the all-time record. This is currently held by MS Dhoni, who earned a total of 27 victories during his 60 Test matches as captain. Kholi is definitely on course to go beyond that, as the current Indian team looks almost unstoppable at the moment.

It was against Sri Lanka that the current run of eight consecutive Test series wins started back in 2015. India has beaten several leading nations since then, including the West Indies, England and Australia. The latest win also came against Sri Lanka – a 3-0 victory during India’s tour of the island earlier this year.

The Sri Lankans will, of course, be looking to redeem themselves during the return tour in these coming weeks, but the fact is that they don’t look competitive. It will take some much-improved performances if they’re going to get anything at all out of this visit, and even if they’re at their very best it’s likely that India will have too much for them.