More sixes, no less Virat: Is the 37-year-old Kohli better than his best?

In the 38th over of India's chase of 296, Virat Kohli was batting on 94 off 73 balls. India had raced past 240 with eight wickets in hand. The chase was well under control. An earlier version of Kohli might have looked for a gap against left-arm spinner Gudakesh Motie, worked the ball into the leg side and sprinted back for two. The hundred would have come soon enough.

He danced down the track to Motie and lofted him over his head and into the stands at the Greenfield International Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram. It was his 55th ODI hundred.

It was also his sixth six of the innings. There were three more to come.

Kohli finished unbeaten on 139 off 88 balls, with 10 fours and nine sixes, as India chased down 296 in 41.4 overs. He had reached his fifty with a six, his hundred with a six and ended the match with another. The nine sixes were the most he had hit in an ODI innings. The hundred came off 74 balls, his third-fastest in the format.

The six to get to three figures was the shot that best captured the change. Kohli did not need to hit it. He chose to. The bat raise, the roar, the milestoneA Virat Kohli show in ThiruvananthapuramUpdates https://t.co/O2cs86p4gq#TeamIndia | #INDvWI | @mflone_ | @imVkohli pic.twitter.com/7pW58tYKeJ— BCCI (@BCCI) September 27, 2026KOHLI HITS DIFFERENTFor much of his career, that was not how he built his ODI innings. His great strength was control: finding gaps, running hard, rotating the strike and waiting for the right moment to accelerate. Between 2017 and 2019, the three-year period that produced the most extraordinary sustained numbers of his career, Kohli scored 4,039 runs at 79.19, with 17 hundreds. He hit 43 sixes in 65 innings, an average of 0.66 per innings.

Rohit Sharma, the benchmark for six-hitting in ODI cricket and the format's record-holder with 363 sixes, hit 121 in 67 innings during the same period: 1.81 per innings.

Kohli did not need to hit sixes like Rohit. He was averaging nearly 80.

Since the end of the 2025 Champions Trophy, Kohli has scored 899 runs in 13 ODI innings at 89.90. He has four hundreds and five fifties. He has also hit 28 sixes: 2.15 per innings. Rohit has hit the same number of sixes in 16 innings in this period, at 1.75 per innings.

The comparison is striking because it shows how much Kohli's boundary-hitting has changed. During his 2017-19 peak, he hit 0.66 sixes per innings. He is now hitting more than three times as many.

And he has not become less consistent in the process.

Kohli's average has gone up by more than 10 runs. His total boundary output has increased too: from 6.69 fours and sixes per innings during 2017-19 to 7.85 in the period since the Champions Trophy.

The sample is small compared with the 65 innings across his statistical peak, so it is too early to use 13 innings to rewrite what Kohli did over three years. But it is enough to show what he has added to his game.

He is taking more risks without the consistency falling away. And he has done it deliberately.

THE NEW SIXER KING?-Kohli, 2017–19Rohit, 2017–19Kohli, since CT 2025Rohit, since CT 2025Runs4,0393,813899759Innings65671316Average79.1965.7489.9050.60Hundreds171842Sixes431212828Sixes/innings0.661.812.151.75Fours3923667483Boundaries/innings6.697.277.856.94FINDING FREEDOM

Before the West Indies series, Kohli spoke about a promise he had made to himself. His motivation is clear: the 2027 World Cup will be his last for India.

"What's changed is, firstly, I promised myself that I'm going to play more freely. I'm not going to worry about the expectations that people might have around me," he told JioStar.

For years, Kohli's role was to stabilise an innings. Now, he wants to alter the game more aggressively.

"I am making a conscious effort to make a difference in the game, where you can get 30-40 extra runs," he said.

The reason is partly the way ODI cricket has moved. Teams are increasingly playing towards 340 and 350. Kohli wants to be able to take India there rather than simply ensure that the innings does not fall apart.

"The game is changing in a way that, especially if the conditions are fast-paced and good, and other teams are looking to push you towards 340-350, we should be able to get 350-360 as well," he said.

"I'm very willing to take risks now because I know that if I make runs there, we'll get 350-360 easily."

There is a condition attached to that freedom. Kohli does not want aggression to become recklessness.

"As I said, I promised myself I'm going to play positively because I can. So I'm going to continue to play like that, but not be reckless," he said after the match.

"There's a fine line which, as a professional, as an experienced player, I should have the ability to execute in this way without playing reckless shots and get the team through."

The same shift has been visible in the IPL. His strike rate in 2024 was 154.69, followed by 144.71 in 2025 and 165.84 in 2026. His sixes went from 16 in 2023 to 38 in 2024, 19 in 2025 and 25 in 2026.

The change is therefore not confined to one ODI innings or one format. Kohli has spent the last couple of years becoming more comfortable with a higher-risk version of his batting.FITNESS FUELS THE DRIVE Virat Kohli spoke about the importance of fitness in driving his evolution (PTI Photo)

The physical side of it matters too. Kohli's explanation for being able to play this way at 37 is not complicated. He points to fitness first.

"Just keeping myself physically very fit, because the game's more or less in the mind," he said on Sunday.

"For me it's about staying mentally fresh, staying in the present moment and just expressing myself really out there to play in a certain way, get used to this template more often."

"I've got a challenge at this stage of my career to kind of up the ante and play a gear or two higher."

For Kohli, physical fitness allows him to imagine that higher gear and sustain it. He can take on the extra risk because he trusts his body to keep doing the other things his innings demand — running hard, turning ones into twos, accelerating late and staying sharp in the field.

"But I think to follow a free mind, you need a fit body," he said.

"So for me it works the other way around. I stay physically fit and then I'm able to visualise the game in the way that I want to play, which allows me the best chance to go out there and execute in the way that I did tonight."

At 37, he is not trying to recreate the Kohli of 2018. That version scored 1,202 ODI runs in 14 innings at 133.35, with six hundreds. It was extraordinary precisely because of how ruthlessly he combined control and consistency.

How do you make a near-perfect ODI batter better?

It is the sort of question that usually answers itself. Why fix something that isn't broken? Kohli's ODI game had already been honed to an extraordinary level: the runs, the hundreds, the average, the consistency.

But that is also what has always separated Kohli. He has never been particularly interested in leaving good enough alone. At 37, with little left to prove in the format, he is still looking for ways to improve.

He has identified another gear, promised himself he would play more freely, and is taking risks he did not take at his peak. The remarkable part is that he is pulling it off without giving up the consistency that made him great in the first place.

Trying to improve perfection is one thing. Actually making it better is something else. That, perhaps, is the genius of Virat Kohli.- Ends

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