December, 2006
Ranji Trophy match is going on at Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium. In the first innings of Karnataka, they made 448 runs and in reply Delhi lost 4 wickets for 14 runs. The situation got worsened as the father of the best batsman of Delhi, has died. His teammates assumed that the man whose father had just died, would not be able to play without attending his father's funeral. But to everyone's surprise, the boy came out from the dressing room with bat and pad. The man whose father has just died in the morning, entered the crease and saved Delhi from a follow-on by scoring 90 off 238 balls in 281 minutes. World Cricket today knows the boy of that day as Virat Kohli — the Indian Cricket Team Captain. You may dislike him for his aggressiveness on the field but if you're a true cricket fan, you've to admit that Virat Kohli is one of the best batsman in world cricket today. Actually you know what, this aggressiveness defines him.
Virat was born in a Punjabi family in Delhi. His Father Prem Kohli was a lawyer by profession and mother Saroj Devi was a housewife. He was the youngest in the family. According to the family, when Virat was three years old, he first started playing with bat and ball. However, no one in the family discouraged him in this regard. But did they anticipate that this boy would one day step into world cricket when he grew up?
Kohli was then 9 years old. One of the neighbors suggested that the boy should be admitted to a cricket academy without wasting his talent in street cricket. That's what Father Prem Kohli also wanted in his mind. He was later admitted to the West Delhi Cricket Academy under coach Rajkumar Sharma. Virat officially started his cricket career in the 2002 Polly Umrigar Trophy, with Delhi U-15 team. He was the highest run scorer in that tournament. The next year, he became the captain of Delhi U-15 team. Virat scored 757 runs in 7 matches in the 2004-05 Vijay Merchant Trophy for Delhi U-17 team, which was the highest in the tournament. He got a chance to play for Delhi in List A cricket in 2006. In the same year, he made his Ranji debut against Tamil Nadu in November.
Virat led the Indian team in the 2008 U-19 Cricket World Cup in Malaysia where India defeated South Africa U-19 team by 12 runs in D/L method. Virat was the third highest run scorer of that tournament. After that he made his ODI debut for the senior team on 18 December 2008 against Sri Lanka. In the same year, IPL team Royal Challengers Bangalore bought him from the auction.
In the 2011 Cricket World Cup Final when India lost both the openers Tendulkar & Sehwag in reply to Sri Lanka's 274, Virat went on to form a stabilizing 85 run stand with Gambhir before he got out to Dilshan after scoring 35 crucial runs. He made his Test debut in 2011 against West Indies. In 2012, he was elected as the vice-captain of the Indian ODI team. When Dhoni retired from Test cricket in 2014 due to failure, Virat took the charge from him during the Aussie tour. With the captaincy in one hand, Virat's bat seemed to become more destructive on the other hand. From here on everyone knows what follows next.
His insatiable hunger for runs made him the best batsmen to have played the game. In his 12-year-long international career, Kohli has scaled many milestones and tumbled several world records in all formats of the game. Let's have a look at some of these records.
Kohli holds the record for the most Test double-centuries by an Indian — 7 so far. He's also the first Test captain to have recorded six double-tons too.
Kohli surpassed cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar to become the fastest Indian to score 10,000 runs in One Day Internationals. Kohli took just 2014 innings to reach the landmark - 54 innings less than Tendulkar.
He's the fastest Indian to have scored 25 centuries in Test cricket.
In 2017, Kohli slammed 11 centuries across all formats of the game and amassed 3000 runs.
In 2019, he became the first batsman to score 20,000 runs in a single decade.
In 2016, he scored 973 runs during IPL - the most ever in a single edition of the T20 league's history.
At the 2019 ODI World Cup, he became the first captain to have scored five straight half-centuries at the showpiece event. Overall, he's the second ever to do so after his contemporary Australian Steven Smith.
He's the most successful Test captain in Indian cricket history with 33 wins to his name.
Kohli is the quickest ever to have scored 8,000 runs (175 innings), 9,000 runs (194 innings), 10,000 runs (205 innings) and 11,000 runs (222 innings) in ODI history.
He's the first batsman to have scored three straight centuries against two different opponents - against Sri Lanka and West Indies.
He continues to be the only batsman to have scored over 300 runs in a bilateral series six times.
He has scored 26 centuries in ODI chases which is the most ever in the format.
Today's Virat Kohli is a combination of self-confidence, hard work, love for his father, persistence etc. The death of his father was the main reason behind his rise to supremacy. He has converted grief for his father into strength by wearing the "18" no. jersey as the number "18" represents the death anniversary of his father. Young, aggressive, classy, stylish, patriot...and many more adjectives wouldn’t describe this man well enough. Some people love him, some people hate him...but you know what? He is born to be the BEST!
Happy Birthday Virat Kohli as the King of World Cricket turns 32 today!
✍️ Subham Dey
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