TEST CAPTAINCY

For the first Test of the Australian tour in December 2014, Dhoni was not part of the Indian team at Adelaide due to an injury, and Kohli took the reins as Test captain for the first time.[195] Kohli scored 115 in India's first innings, becoming the fourth Indian to score a hundred on Test captaincy debut.[196] In their second innings, India were set a target of 364 to be scored on the fifth day. Kohli came in to bat when the Indian innings was reduced to 57/2 and started batting aggressively. He put on 185 runs for the third wicket with Murali Vijay before Vijay's dismissal, which triggered a batting collapse. From 242/2, India was bowled out for 315 with Kohli's 141 off 175 balls being the top score.[197] Kohli noted that his team was looking for a win and not a draw, while also saying that it was "the best Test I have been part of".[198] Kohli's second innings ton was hailed by several Australian commentators as the finest fourth-innings performance they had ever seen in Australia.[199]

Dhoni returned to the team as captain for the second match at Brisbane where Kohli scored 19 and 1 in a four-wicket defeat for India.[92] In the Melbourne Boxing Day Test, Kohli was India's top-scorer in both innings. He made his personal best Test score of 169 in the first innings while sharing a 262-run partnership with Rahane, India's biggest partnership outside Asia in ten years.[200] Kohli followed it with a score of 54 in India's second innings on the fifth day, helping his team draw the Test match.[92] Dhoni announced his retirement from Test cricket at the conclusion of this match, and Kohli was appointed as the full-time Test captain ahead of the fourth Test at Sydney.[201] Captaining the Test team for the second time, Kohli hit 147 in the first innings of the match and became the first batsman in Test cricket history to score three hundreds in his first three innings as Test captain.[202] He was dismissed for 46 in the second innings and India hung in for another draw.[203] Kohli's total of 692 runs in four Tests was the most by any Indian batsman in a Test series in Australia.[202]

In January 2015, India failed to win a single match in the tri-nation ODI series against the hosts Australia and England. Kohli was unable to replicate his Test success in ODIs, failing to make a two-digit score in any of the four games.[51] Kohli's ODI form did not improve in the lead-up to the World Cup, with scores of 18 and 5 in the warm-up matches against Australia and Afghanistan respectively.

In the first match of the World Cup against Pakistan at Adelaide, Kohli hit 107 in 126 balls, sharing 100-plus partnerships with both Dhawan and Raina, to help India set a total of 300 and win the match by 76 runs. For his knock, he was awarded the man of the match award, his 20th in ODIs and second in a World Cup match.[204] Kohli also became first Indian batsman to score a century against Pakistan in a World Cup match.[205] He was dismissed for 46 in India's second match against South Africa after another century partnership with opening batsman Dhawan. India went on to post 307 in 50 overs and register a 130-run victory in the match. India batted second in their remaining four group matches in which Kohli scored 33*, 33, 44* and 38 against UAE, West Indies, Ireland and Zimbabwe respectively.[51] India went on to secure wins in these four fixtures and top the Pool B points with an undefeated record.[206] In India's 109-run victory in the quarter-final over Bangladesh, Kohli was dismissed by Rubel Hossain for 3 edging the ball to the wicket-keeper. India was eliminated in the semi-final by Australia at Melbourne, where Kohli was dismissed for 1 off 13 balls, top-edging a short-pitched delivery from Mitchell Johnson.[51]

Kohli had a slump in form when India toured Bangladesh in June 2015. He contributed only 14 in the one-off Test which ended in a draw and averaged 16.33 in the ODI series which Bangladesh won 2–1.[207] Kohli ended his streak of low scores by scoring his 11th Test hundred in the first Test of the Sri Lankan tour which India lost. India came back and won the next two matches to seal the series 2–1, Kohli's first series win as Test captain and India's first away Test series win in four years.[208]

During South Africa's tour of India, Kohli became the fastest batsman in the world to make 1,000 runs in T20I cricket, reaching the milestone in his 27th innings.[209] In the ODI series, he made 77 at Rajkot and a match-winning 138 in the fourth ODI at Chennai that helped India draw level in the series.[210] India lost the series after a defeat in the final ODI and Kohli finished the series with an average of 49.[211] India came back to beat the top-ranked South African team 3–0 in the four-match Test series under Kohli's captaincy, and climbed to number two position on the ICC Test rankings.[212] He scored a total of 200 runs in the series at 33.33, including 44 and 88 in the fourth match at Delhi.[92]

No. 1 Test team and limited-overs captaincy

Kohli started 2016 with scores of 91 and 59 in the first two ODIs of the limited-overs tour of Australia. He followed it up with a pair of hundreds–a run-a-ball 117 at Melbourne and 106 from 92 balls at Canberra–in the next two matches. During the course of the series, he became the fastest batsman in the world to cross the 7000-run mark in ODIs, getting to the milestone in his 161st innings, and the fastest to get to 25 centuries. After the ODI series ended in a 1–4 loss, the Indian team came back to whitewash the Australians 3–0 in the T20I series. Kohli made fifties in all three T20Is with scores of 90 not out,[213] 59 not out[214] and 50, winning two man of the matches as well as the man of the series award.[215] He was also instrumental in India winning the Asia Cup in Bangladesh the following month in which he scored 49 in a run-chase of 84 against Pakistan,[216] followed by an unbeaten 56 against Sri Lanka and 41 not out in the Final against Bangladesh in two more successful chases.[217]

Kohli maintained his match-winning form in the 2016 ICC World Twenty20 in India, scoring 55 not out in another successful run-chase against Pakistan.[218] He struck an unbeaten 82 from 51 balls in India's must-win group match against Australia in "an innings of sheer class" with "clean cricket shots".[219][220] The knock helped India win by six wickets and register a spot in the semi-final; Kohli went on to rate the innings as his best in the format.[221] In the semi-final, Kohli top-scored once again with an unbeaten 89 from 47 deliveries, but West Indies overhauled India's total of 192 and ended India's campaign. His total of 273 runs in five matches at an average of 136.50 earned him his second consecutive Man of the Tournament award at the World Twenty20.[222] He was named as captain of the 'Team of the Tournament' for the 2016 World Twenty20 by the ICC.[223]

Playing his first Test in the West Indies since his debut series, Kohli scored 200 in the first Test at Antigua to ensure an innings-and-92-run win for India, their biggest win ever outside of Asia. It was his first double hundred in first-class cricket and the first made away from home by an Indian captain in Tests.[224] India went on to wrap the series 2–0 and briefly top the ICC Test Rankings before being displaced by Pakistan at the position. He scored another double hundred–211 at Indore in the third Test against New Zealand–as India's 3–0 whitewash victory saw them regain the top position in the ICC Test Rankings.[225] In the subsequent ODI series, Kohli set up two wins for India batting second with unbeaten knocks of 85 at Dharamsala and 134-ball 154 at Mohali.[226] He then made 65 in the series-deciding fifth game at Visakhapatnam which India won.

Kohli got double centuries in the next two Test series against England and Bangladesh, making him the first batsman ever to score double centuries in four consecutive series. He broke the record of Australian great Donald Bradman and fellow Indian Rahul Dravid, both of whom had managed to get three. Against England, he got his then-highest Test score of 235.[227]