Pakistan test captain Misbah-ul-Haq and senior batsman Younis Khan were among the five "Cricketers of the Year", a group which also includes the English trio of Ben Duckett, Chris Woakes and Toby Roland-Jones.
The five players cannot have been chosen before and the emphasis remains on the English summer.
Australia's Ellyse Perry was named the world's leading women's cricketer.
Barring the just-concluded home series against Australia, Kohli had a fairytale year in which the batsman averaged more than anyone in all three formats, while his team lost only once in their 13-test home season.
Kohli's 235 in the Mumbai test against England cemented his place as "the spiritual successor to Sachin Tendulkar", editor Lawrence Booth wrote.
Kohli is the third Indian, after Virender Sehwag (2008, 2009) and Tendulkar (2010), to have won the honour.
(Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; editing by Sudipto Ganguly)
