India, Jan. 16 -- Virat Kohli's "dominance" at the top of the ICC men's ODI batting rankings can be measured in two very different ways. One is longevity: how long you stay at No. 1 without being dislodged. The other is separation: how far ahead you are from the next-best batter while you're there. Kohli's longest reign - from 22 October 2017 to 1 April 2021 - is the endurance headline. But if the question is where he was truly miles ahead of the competition, the clearest answer is early 2018, when the gap between Kohli and the rest looked less like a leaderboard and more like a cliff.

That early-2018 window is the purest example of a No. 1 ranking that felt locked. Not because Kohli was merely consistent, but because he was generating a...