Winning World Cups is a function of the team. India have not won many World Cups because their bowling has been poor. Australia have produced great batsmen but their bowling has been incredible as well.
Give India's (historic) bowling to Australia and they won't win a World Cup, but give McGrath, Warne, Lee etc. to the Indian batsmen and they will win multiple World Cups too.
For me, Kohli has surpassed everyone except Viv because of what he has achieved at such a young age. His best years are still ahead of him and he will have to play very poorly from here on to taint his legacy. He is already an ODI ATG at the age of 28.
<B>There are two great challenges for batsmen in ODIs: chasing big totals and performing in tournaments.</B> Kohli is already the greatest ever by a country mile when it comes to chasing totals, and although he has performed in the Champions Trophy and played a couple of good knocks in World Cups, he needs to deliver an iconic innings in World Cups to become the GOAT ODI batsman.
de Villiers is not a chaser of Kohli's caliber and he bats too low to influence the course of the game. That is why for all his runs, he has not won a single knockout match for South Africa in any tournament. His reluctance to bat in the top 3 was the main reason why SA did not make it to the final of the World Cup in 2015.
Kohli takes the bull by the horns instead of cowering behind the top 3, which is not acceptable when you are the best batsman in the team. I always give examples of the Champions Trophy 2013 SF and the 2015 World Cup SF: both games were lost due to de Villier's lack of character.
In the CT, the ball was swinging miles and de Villiers hid behind a bowling all-rounder (Peterson) so that he could cash in when the ball stops swinging. Unfortunately for him, cricket is a great leveler and he ended up getting a duck later on, and protecting himself from the swing didn't help him.
Kohli would never hide in a situation like this; he would never send someone like Jadeja ahead of him so that he can make merry once the ball stops swinging. He would try and do the job himself. That takes guts, which de Villiers does not have.
And that is what he did in the final. India lost an early wicket in swinging conditions, and Kohli steered India to a competitive total.
In the 2015 World Cup SF, on a flat pitch with small boundaries and the biggest game of de Villiers' captaincy, he allowed inferior players like Faf and Rossouw to waste valuable overs in the middle overs while he restricted himself to 15-20 overs only. He played a great innings, but his refusal to bat up the order meant that South Africa did not run away with the game when he had the opportunity.
In reply, McCullum took charge at the top and put South Africa on the back-foot, and NZ rode on that momentum and won the game in spite of stuttering in the middle overs.
Cricket is a game of character, which de Villiers lacks but Kohli has in abundance, and that is why he is going to go down as a greater cricketer in spite of the fact that de Villiers has been blessed with far greater natural talent.
Tendulkar, Ponting, Dhoni and Bevan are all better than de Villiers, whose runs have lacked substance and context. However, Kohli has surpassed them all, and is now chasing Viv Richards.
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