How Kohli stacks up as Test captain

Virat Kohli's leadership era is seemingly only just beginning but the master batsman notched his 10th Test hundred as India captain as his team wrapped up a 304-run thrashing of Sri Lanka in Galle.

Kohli resumed on 76 on day four of the first Test, hurrying to 103 before he declared the innings closed at 3-240, setting the hosts 550 to win.

Quick Single: India roll Sri Lanka to complete Galle mauling

It was the 28-year-old's 10th hundred in 44 innings as captain, the fifth-fastest rate of any skipper to reach double-figure tons in Test history behind Australian Sir Donald Bradman (26 innings), Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardena (36), and another Aussie pair in Steve Smith (37) and Steve Waugh (43).

Kohli's captaincy career started with a bang back in 2014-15 when he scored centuries in each of his first three innings as skipper and four in his first six.

He's turned four of his 10 tons as skipper into doubles, one of only five men - along with Brian Lara (five), Bradman, Michael Clarke and Graeme Smith (four each) - to score four or more double centuries as captain.

His average from 27 Tests as captain is a mighty 61.09, putting him third all time among to have skippered their side in 20 or more Tests, behind only Bradman (101.51 from 24 Tests) and his fierce Australian rival Steve Smith (73.27 from 24).

Perhaps more impressively still, Kohli is now just one century behind the legendary Sunil Gavaskar for most hundreds by an India captain.

Gavaskar made his 11 hundreds as skipper in 74 innings, while South Africa's Smith holds the overall record for most centuries as captain, having posted 25 in 193 Test innings.

Kohli (2505 runs as captain) has a long way to go to break the record of the former Proteas skipper Smith, whose 8659 runs as captain is more than 2000 runs ahead of Allan Border (6623) in second spot.

Kohli's century in Galle came on the back of one of the leanest Test series of his career against Australia in February-March, when he made 46 runs in three matches at 9.20.

But the right-hander, who posted his 17th Test hundred overall and pushed his average back above 50, said he was unconcerned by what had come before the Sri Lanka tour.

"I wasn't looking at things from that point of view," he said.

"I think people on the outside start counting the number of innings when a batsman doesn't score well, but for us as batsmen or anyone playing in the XI, it's all about what the team wants at that particular situation.

"And you end up scoring runs as well, plus you end up helping team also.

"The second innings required us to play more positively, and I'm glad I was able to do that along with Abhinav (Mukund) to get us enough time to get the opposition out and enough runs on the board for us to feel comfortable.

"I wasn't certainly looking at things like how many innings I haven't scored because when you are playing all formats, you don't think which format you have not scored runs in how many innings."

HIGHEST AVERAGE AS TEST CAPTAIN (min 20 Tests)

• Don Bradman - 101.51
• Steve Smith - 73.27
• Virat Kohli - 61.09
• Mahela Jayawardena - 59.11
• Garry Sobers - 58.80

MOST 200+ SCORES AS TEST CAPTAIN

• Brian Lara - 5
• Don Bradman - 4
• Graeme Smith - 4
• Michael Clarke - 4
• Virat Kohli - 4

FASTEST TO 10 TEST TONS AS CAPTAIN

• Don Bradman - 26 innings
• Mahela Jayawardena - 36 innings
• Steve Smith - 37 innings
• Steve Waugh - 43 innings
• Virat Kohli - 44 innings
• Michael Clarke - 47 innings
• Allan Border - 48 innings
• Ricky Ponting - 51 innings
• Peter May - 51 innings
• Sunil Gavaskar - 52 innings
• Graham Gooch - 57 innings
• Bob Simpson - 62 innings
• Brian Lara - 62 innings
• Greg Chappell - 63 innings
• Alastair Cook - 71 innings
• Clive Lloyd - 82 innings
• Graeme Smith - 88 innings