Virat Kohli
NameVirat Kohli
BornNovember 05, 1988 Delhi
Age34 years 27 days
TeamsIndia, Delhi, India Red, India U19, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Board Presidents XI, North Zone, Indians, India A, Asia XI
NicknameKohli
Bat StyleRight Handed Bat
Bowl StyleRight-arm medium
Profile
A spunky, chubby teenager with gelled hair shot to fame after leading India to glory in the Under-19 World Cup at Kuala Lumpur in early 2008. In an Indian team filled with saint-like icons worthy of their own hagiographies, Virat Kohli, with his most un-Indian, ‘bad-boy’ intensity, would clearly be an outcast.
Grind through the ranks
He soon joined the senior Men in Blue in Sri Lanka, come August 2008. In the absence of the regular openers, Virat Kohli was given a chance to open the batting in the ODI series. He played some commendable knocks in his extended run as an opener, as India went on to win the ODI series. However, the established and formidable pair of Tendulkar and Sehwag kept Kohli out of the team
The 20-year-old continued to impress for Delhi and dominated attacks, clearly demonstrating that he belonged at a much higher level; that junior cricket was beneath his standards. Kohli then traveled to Australia in 2009 for the Emerging players tournament and stamped his authority all over the bowling attacks. He added ‘big-match temperament’ to his résumé too, lacing a fluent hundred in the final against South Africa, and guiding his team to a clinical victory. The young prodigy, barely old enough to receive his man-of-the-match champagne, ended the tournament with 398 runs from 7 outings with two centuries and two fifties, ensuring that he remained fresh in the selectors’ minds.
Cementing a national spot
The selectors had no choice but to give Kohli another go in the Indian side, and this time he strung together a number of impressive scores. After being given an extended run, he repaid their faith by notching up his maiden ODI hundred in an impressive run-chase against Sri Lanka in December 2009 – his first of many exemplary knocks in run-chases. In the World Cup final of 2011, the biggest stage of them all, Kohli, along with his Delhi teammate Gautam Gambhir, pulled off a largely underrated rescue effort with an 83-run stand after losing the openers early. This knock played a crucial role in setting the platform for MS Dhoni’s fabled knock of 91*, which eventually won India the World Cup on that enchanting evening in Mumbai.
In the hangover of the World Cup euphoria, Kohli continued to take giant strides in the limited-overs format. Three years after his ODI debut, he was finally handed the coveted Test cap in the Caribbean islands in July 2011, owing
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