Virat Kohli

A modern legend of the game,, Virat Kohli is definitely the most versatile batter currently and by the time he brings the curtain down on his career, Kohli might well become the greatest ever batter to have graced the game. Despite emerging as a child prodigy who led India to an Under-19 World Cup win back in 2008, Kohli wasn’t quite as gifted as his idol Sachin Tendulkar. However, his hard work and dedication helped him achieve what he has today. 

Emerging as a chubby and flamboyant youngster, Kohli was often touted as an arrogant young kid. He was in a totally different mould, unlike the culture in the Indian cricket team before. He was aggressive, and even in his early days, he never backed away from indulging himself in needling the oppositions. Just like Rahul Dravid said in an interview, “Needling the opposition gets the best out of him, but it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.” 

Born in 1988 in Delhi to a Punjabi family, Kohli was interested in cricket from a very early age. He used to hold a cricket bat as a 3-year-old kid and would ask his father to bowl at him. Kohli’s father admitted him to an academy where he trained under the watchful guidance of Rajkumar Sharma.

Recalling Kohli’s early days, Rajkumar Sharma said that Kohli oozed class from an early age. 

“He oozed talent. It was so difficult to keep him quiet. He was a natural in whatever he did and I was most impressed with his attitude. He was ready to bat at any spot, and I had to literally push him home after the training sessions. He just wouldn’t leave,” Rajkumar Sharma had said in an interview. 

Kohli went on to play for the Delhi U-15 team in October 2002 and was part of the 2002-03 Polly Umrigar Trophy. He finished as the leading run-getter for his team and was appointed as the captain in the next season. He smashed 390 runs in just 5 matches, including two centuries and two half-centuries. He kept churning out runs on a consistent basis, and in the 2003-04 Vijay Merchant Trophy, Kohli was at his staggering best, scoring 470 runs in just 4 matches.

 Following his consistent run, Kohli was awarded a place in the India U-19 squad for the tour of England in July 2006. India won the series, and Kohli emerged as a promising talent and earned accolades from the then-Indian manager Lalchand Rajput. The same year Kohli made his First-Class debut for Delhi against Tamil Nadu in November. A month later, Kohli had to deal with a big personal loss after the death of his father, but he decided to play a day after his father’s death and went onto score a match-saving 90 against Karnataka. 

In February-March 2008, Kohli was appointed as the skipper of the Indian U-19 team for the 2008 World Cup. Kohli not only impressed with the bat but also led India to a sensational victory. Batting at No 3, Kohli scored 235 runs in 6 matches at an average of 47 which included a century against West Indies. Following his heroics in the junior World Cup, Kohli bagged an IPL contract with the Royal Challengers Bangalore and was bought at his base price.

He was soon drafted into the senior Indian side when he was included in the squad for the ODI series in Sri Lanka. Regular openers Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag had sustained injuries, and Kohli played as a makeshift opener scoring a solitary fifty in his 5 outings. The youngster took some time to settle himself in a side loaded with superstars. 

He smashed his maiden international century in 2009 in an ODI against Sri Lanka in Kolkata. Along with Gautam Gambhir, Kohli shared a sensational stand and helped India win the match from a precarious situation. Gambhir showed a great gesture by awarding his Man of the Match Award to Kohli. 

Kohli made his World Cup debut in 2011 and joined an elite list of cricketers with a hundred on his World Cup debut in the opener against Bangladesh. Two years after making his ODI debut, Kohli was finally handed over the Test debut against West Indies in 2011. In the next series in Australia, Kohli’s technique was questioned after two disappointing outings in the first two games. However, the skipper, MS Dhoni, persisted with him, and the result was there for everyone to see in the next two matches. He smashed 75 and 44 in the next Test in Perth and followed it up with a maiden Test century in Adelaide when most of the other experienced batters failed.

Kohli’s breakthrough ODI knock came in 2012 when he thrashed the Sri Lankan bowlers all around the park in Hobart and helped India chase down a stiff target of 321 in just the 38th over. Lasith Malinga received some special treatment from Kohli as he was belted for 24 runs in an over. That knock turned out to be a career-changing one for Kohli as he started taking giant strides as a batter, especially in the limited-overs. Not even a month had passed, but Kohli played yet another innings for the ages, smashing 183 runs versus Pakistan in the Asia Cup 2012. While chasing 330 runs, India had lost Gautam Gambhir early, but Kohli once again soaked up the pressure, doing the bulk of the scoring all by himself, leading India to a famous win in Mirpur.

Over the next few years, Kohli kept climbing on the ladder and emerged as one of the greatest young cricketers. However, there were a few chinks in his armour, especially when it came to a technique that troubled him quite a bit in 2014. He was found wanting against the quality English pace attack in the tour of 2014. He scored just 134 runs in 10 innings and had a forgettable outing. He went back and focused on his technique, even taking some advice from his idol Sachin Tendulkar and in 2018, he came to England as a totally changed batter finishing as the leading run-getter (593) by a country mile among both the teams. 

He was part of the 2015 World Cup squad and scored a century in the opening encounter against Pakistan. He had a slump in form as the tournament progressed, as India was eliminated after losing the semi-final against Australia. By then, Kohli had already established himself as arguably the greatest ODI batter and in 2016, Kohli was very close to taking India to a title win in the 2016 T20 World Cup. However, the dreams were shattered after some shoddy batting from the middle order.

 Following the retirement of MS Dhoni, Kohli was handed over the full-time captaincy of the Test side in 2015, and he led India to their first series win in Sri Lanka after 22 years. After losing the opening Test, India staged a dramatic comeback and registered a 2-1 series win. He then led India to a 3-0 series win against South Africa on rank turners, but his personal form was far from impressive. 

Over the years, Kohli has evolved as a “chase master” in limited-overs cricket, and his exploits, especially in 50 overs cricket, have simply gone on to a different level. 

Despite starting off his Test career on a rather sedate note, Kohli has also taken his Test record to a different level. In 2017, Kohli became the first batter in Test cricket history to smash 4 double hundreds in 4 consecutive Test series. He had a sensational time with the bat in Australia back in 2014 when he accumulated 692 runs in 4 matches which included 4 centuries. Despite his exceptional record in all formats, Kohli continues to have some problems with the moving ball.

Kohli continues to be part of the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) franchise but not as a captain anymore. He took batting to a whole new level in the 2016 IPL when he almost smashed 1000 season runs with 4 centuries. Kohli took his side to the final where they lost against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) narrowly. His captaincy in the tournament was questioned time and again as RCB failed to lift a trophy. However, things did not change much even after he relinquished the captaincy post the 2022 season.

Amidst all of this, a captaincy saga jolted Indian cricket. After Kohli willingly left the T20I leadership set-up, with the 2021 World Cup being his final assignment that resulted in a league-stage exit for India, the ODI captaincy was taken away from him. The then-BCCI president Sourav Ganguly gave a reasoning behind this opining that they want a single white-ball skipper, handing over the reins to Rohit Sharma.

Things went upside down even further as Kohli decided to resign from the Test captaincy after the South Africa tour even though he became India’s most successful leader in the format.

A century drought bugged him in between. The wait between his 70th and 71st hundred lasted 1,021 days. He broke this unwanted streak in the Asia Cup 2022 match versus Afghanistan.

This gave birth to a second wind as Kohli was back to his old self, something that the fans craved for a long time.

In the T20 World Cup 2022, Kohli led the run-scoring charts. He top-scored with 296 runs in six innings. Not to forget his epic 82-run knock versus Pakistan in Melbourne. He brought India out of misery, pulling off a miraculous run-chase that needed the Men in Blue to score 48 runs in the final three overs of the innings. In the process, he smashed a back-foot straight six on a good-length delivery off Haris Rauf, which is now hailed as the Shot of the Century.

In IPL 2023, his run-machine mode continued. Although RCB failed to reach the playoffs, Kohli displayed tremendous touch, scoring 639 runs in 14 matches, including two tons.

In the Asia Cup 2023, he scored a match-winning hundred against Pakistan and took his rich form to the World Cup held in the same year.

Although India lost the final to Australia, where too Kohli scored a fifty, there was no stopping The King. He scored 765 runs in the tournament, the most by a batter in a single edition of an ODI World Cup. He smashed three centuries, including the one which came in the semi-final versus New Zealand. It took him to his 77th international hundred and 50th in the ODI format, helping him surpass Sachin Tendulkar’s record of most ODI centuries in front of the legend himself.

He was named the ICC Men’s ODI Cricketer of the Year for 2023.

After the World Cup final heartbreak, Kohli next played a Test series in South Africa, piling up 172 runs across four innings.

He made his T20I comeback after 14 months in the series versus Afghanistan.

While he was initially named in the India squad for the England Test series, he pulled out of the first two Tests, with his break extending to the whole assignment later on due to personal reasons.

(As of February 2024)