Virat Kohli and the Fab 4: Legacy Under the Microscope

There was a time — not long ago — when cricket felt like it revolved around four men. Not officially. No ICC medals handed out, no digital badges, no algorithm-made rankings. Just four cricketers who, across formats and continents, set the rhythm of a generation.

They were called the “Fab 4.” And while that label stuck — catchy, easy to remember, good for headlines — it never really told the whole story.

Because what Virat Kohli did in Adelaide in 2014, what Steve Smith kept doing in the Ashes, what Joe Root quietly pulled off through England’s darkest batting days, and what Kane Williamson offered under New Zealand’s perpetual underdog cloak — none of that fits into a slogan.

In 2025, with all four careers approaching twilight (or reshaping), the idea isn’t to rank them. It’s to revisit the context. What did they stand for? And how much of modern cricket was really written by them?

Let’s begin with the one name you can’t ignore.

Virat Kohli: The Relentless Standard

There’s intensity, and then there’s Kohli. He didn’t walk into Indian cricket. He arrived like a man kicked out of the door and determined to break it down from the outside. You could see it in the way he ran his singles in 2009 — desperate, teeth clenched, like each run counted more than it did on the scoreboard.

Over time, the muscle grew leaner, the wrists tighter, the cover drive purer. But the fury never left. What separated Kohli wasn’t just stats. It was his ability to impose a tone. You felt it before the first ball. He made 70 feel like 170 just by how he celebrated it. And when he got past 100? He didn’t raise the bat — he stared into the crowd, almost challenging them to doubt him again.

By 2025, he’s passed 80 international hundreds. But it’s not the count that matters. It’s where and when they came. In Durban when the ball swung early. In Mohali when India needed control. At Edgbaston with a wobbling top order behind him. Kohli’s record in chases alone could be a career. He built innings like a sculptor — not just to score, but to shut doors on opponents.

If there’s a defining truth about Virat Kohli, it’s this: He didn’t wait for cricket to reward him. He went out and took the game by the collar.

Kane Williamson: Composure in Chaos

Where Kohli was all fire and fury, Williamson came in like a counterbalance. There was always something almost monk-like about Kane. The pause before he played. The polite nod after a thick edge. Even in pressure — especially in pressure — his body never betrayed emotion.

But make no mistake. Under that quiet was a core of steel. You don’t carry an entire nation’s hope on your shoulders and take them to multiple finals without a ruthless edge. Williamson’s real genius lay in subtraction. He removed excess — no unnecessary movement, no noise, no ego. He played like a man editing his own batting in real time.

There’s a reason bowlers hated bowling to him. Not because he smashed them. But because he refused to be hurried. No matter the pace, he’d drag the game into his tempo.

Across formats, across injuries, and despite a team that often lacked batting depth, Kane stood up. His Test hundreds in New Zealand — on green seamers that would make any batter flinch — remain some of the most technically sound innings of the decade.

Steve Smith: The Mad Scientist of Batting

If you grew up in the 2000s, you were taught what a good technique looked like. Balance. Head over the ball. Elbows high. Then Steve Smith came along and broke the textbook in half — and made the damn thing look outdated.

Smith wasn’t supposed to succeed. His trigger movements were manic. His initial stance looked like someone preparing to dodge traffic. And yet, once the ball was released, everything clicked. The bat came down straight, the weight shifted perfectly, the hands found their gap.

He wasn’t elegant. He was disruptive. And that’s what made him terrifying.

Especially in Tests, his numbers are the kind you double-check for typos. Over 9000 runs with an average flirting near 60 for much of his prime. Ashes series after Ashes series, English bowlers came in with elaborate plans — and left scratching their heads as Smith flayed them from angles that didn’t exist on coaching manuals.

His game was logic-defying. And yet, entirely logical — to him.

Joe Root: The Survivor with Silken Wrists

For years, Root was the quiet one in the room. No tattoos. No shouting. No dramatic on-field presence. Just a man who walked out at No. 3 or No. 4 for England, often at 20 for 2, and tried to stitch the innings back together.

What made Root special wasn’t just volume — though he’s piled up close to 12,000 Test runs now. It was how he kept adapting. When England fell into chaos, Root anchored them. When spin dominated in Asia, Root swept his way to mastery. He reinvented himself post-2020, returning with a looser, more fluent version of his game — suddenly hitting hundreds for fun again.

More than anyone, Root represents durability. He’s played in more conditions than most, across more unstable team environments, and still come out among the most reliable modern batters.

Fab 4 Stats Snapshot (as of 2025)

Player	Test Runs	Test Avg	ODI Runs	ODI Avg	Intl. 100s
Virat Kohli	8848	49.2	13848	58.2	80+
Steve Smith	9478	56.3	5131	43.3	44
Joe Root	11212	49.6	6526	51.0	46
Kane Williamson	8725	54.0	6810	47.8	44

So… Who Led the Era?

There’s no one answer. And that’s the beauty of this rivalry — it wasn’t a rivalry at all. Kohli ruled white-ball cricket. Smith warped Test cricket into his own sandbox. Williamson turned modesty into magic. Root kept the art alive in England when no one else did.

But if you walk into a cricket stadium anywhere in the world, and a name draws the loudest cheer — odds are, it’s still Virat Kohli.

He didn’t just define the Fab 4.
He redefined what modern greatness looks like.