Kolkata: India captain Virat Kohli turned 32 today. Regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the modern-era, Kohli has established himself as a role model not only just for youngsters but also for the batsmen around the world playing at the top level. Due to his consistency and class, Kohli is being spoken in the same breath as Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni, two cricketers with the biggest fan base in India.
Among Indian batsmen, Kohli has the best ever Test, ODI and T20I rating with 937, 911 and 897 points respectively. As far as records go, Kohli, with 42 tons, is next only to the great Tendulkar in terms of leading century-makers in ODIs and holds the record for being the fastest batsman to reach 8000, 9000, 10000 and 11000 runs in ODIs. Since October 2017, he has been the top-ranked ODI batsman in the world.
View this post on InstagramHappy Birthday @virat.kohli !!! #happybirthday #viratkohli #Sportslightmedia
Family: Kohli was born in Delhi in a Punjabi-Hindu family. His father, Prem Kohli worked as a criminal lawyer and his mother, Saroj Kohli, is a housewife. He has an older brother, Vikas, and an older sister, Bhavna. According to his family, when he was three-year-old, Kohli would pick up a cricket bat, start swinging it and used to ask his father to bowl at him. He got married to Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma in December 2017. And they are expecting their first child in January 2021.
Youth career: Kohli first played for the Delhi U-15 side in the 2002–03 Polly Umrigar Trophy. In July 2006, Kohli was selected in the India U-19 squad on its tour of England. He averaged 105 in the three-match ODI series against England U-19. Kohli made his first-class debut for Delhi against Tamil Nadu in November 2006, at the age of 18.
In April 2007, he made his T20 debut and finished as the highest run-getter for his team in the Inter-State T20 Championship with 179 runs at an average of 35.80. In February–March 2008, Kohli captained the victorious Indian team at the 2008 ICC U-19 Cricket World Cup held in Malaysia. Following the U-19 World Cup, Kohli was bought by the IPL franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore.
King of Centuries: The right-hander has the most number of double centuries (seven) in Tests among Indian batsmen, the highest being 254* against South Africa which put him at par with the likes of former Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene and English first-class cricketer Wally Hammond.
Kohli has surpassed the greatest Sir Don Bradman’s major record in Tests. He has nine 150-plus scores in the longest format of the game while Bradman has one less. Further, he is the fourth-fastest to 26 Test tons. Impressively, he is the fourth player to score a ton in his 50th match as Test captain.
Kohli’s T20I records: He is the only Indian to average 50 in the format. Further, he is the only batsman in the history of cricket, to have a 50-plus average across formats (Tests: 53.63 and ODI: 59.34). While he has scored 22 half-centuries in T20Is, he is yet to score a century in this format.
When you have 70 centuries and 104 fifties, it’s easy for a 35-run knock to be forgotten!
— ICC (@ICC) November 5, 2020
But this shouldn’t be – coming in at 31/2 in a CWC final, a young Virat Kohli held his own to play a crucial role in 🇮🇳’s win 🙌
Is this underrated knock among his top three in ODIs? pic.twitter.com/5CwGwja2sb
Records as Test captain: He has scored 1,000 runs in three successive calendar years- 2016 (1,215), 2017 (1,059) and 2018 (1,322). The first Indian who has seven double hundreds as the Test skipper. The most successful Indian Test captain, having won 31 games. He also has the most overseas wins as Test skipper — 13.
More records: He is the first batsman to score 20,000 international runs in a single decade, one of the fastest batsmen to reach 10,000 ODI runs. In 2018, he had also shattered the fastest 1,000 ODI runs in a calendar year (11 innings). In 2017, Kohli hammered the most ODI runs (1,460) as the Indian captain in a calendar year. He became the first Indian batsman and the seventh in the world to surpass 9000 T20 runs in the 13th edition of IPL.
Awards: He had received Arjuna Award in 2013, Padma Shri in 2017, Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna in 2018, ICC ODI Player of the Year in 2012, 2017, 2018; ICC Test Player of the Year in 2018, Polly Umrigar Award for International Cricketer of the Year in 2011-12, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18, Wisden Leading World Cricketer in 2016, 2017, 2018.
However, while he has achieved everything including a World Cup winners’ medal in 2011, Kohli is yet to pocket the Indian Premier League silverware in his cabinet with RCB.
