A chubby, spunky 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, '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. He quickly gained recognition for his consistent batting performances and aggressive style, especially in limited-overs cricket. However, the established and formidable pair of Tendulkar kept Vi rat 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. 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.
Cementing a national spot
The selectors had no choice but to give Vi rat another go in the Indian side, and this time he strung together a number of impressive scores. His first of many exemplary knocks in run-chases. During the World Cup final of 2011, Vi rat, along with his Delhi teammate Gautam, pulled off a largely underrated rescue effort with an 83-run stand after losing the openers early. His knock played a crucial role in setting the platform for MSD's knock of 91*, which eventually won India the World Cup on that enchanting evening in Mumbai.
In the hangover of the World Cup euphoria, he continued to take giant strides in the limited-overs format. After three years of his ODI debut, he was finally handed the Test cap in the West indies in July 2011, owing to the need to rest the senior players. After a series against the SG ball and Dukes ball, it was now time for his trial against the Kookaburra Down Under. During the first two tests, he seemed to lack the technique to play in Australia, maintaining his low stance on the bouncy tracks. Vi rat also had a rather restricting trigger movement, with his front-foot routinely coming across towards the off-stump, thereby hindering the necessary movement to play back-foot shots such as the pull and the cut.
A baptism by fire Down Under
The selectors and the captain persisted with him going into the 3rd Test, and he delivered a break-through performance on a bouncy Perth wicket - an impressive 75 - where a visible change in technique was visible. He managed to stand tall, with a more open stance, and exhibited the back-foot shots in his repertoire during the course of the innings. The Volatile Vi rat managed to overshadow his impropriety in conduct with his performance in the final Test of the series. Which is India's only century of a disastrous tour, Vi rat was the shining light in amidst the chaos, as he stroked his way to a hundred in Adelaide exhibiting the will to improve and extraordinary focus under pressure in the searing heat and pressure of Australia.
While he grappled and clawed his way into the Test side, he went on a record-breaking spree in one day internationals: the Indian record for the fastest to multiples-of-thousand runs in one day internationals, culminating in the world record for the fastest to 9000 runs in one day internationals. He was also the highest run-scorer for India in one day internationals for three consecutive calendar years - 2010, 2011 and 2012 and won the ICC one day internationals cricketer of the year award in 2012.
That break-through innings…
We remember the accolades, but where did it all begin? There's always the one innings that made the world sit up and take notice; the 86-ball knock in which he started off as a brash boy, but ended as a man. While chasing an improbable target of 321 off 40 overs to stay alive in the tournament, he laid into the Sri Lankan bowlers and carted his way to 133*, getting India home with more than 2 overs to spare, practically pulling them out of the airport after MSD rather ignorantly remarked that India had already been eliminated from the tournament.
Batting technique and idiosyncrasies
Vi rat has a seemingly hot head on his shoulders, but he channels all his anger while he is batting. He is known to be an aggressive batsman always on the lookout for runs, he has a fairly sound, albeit slightly unconventional technique, which makes him judge the length of the ball earlier than most, and amazingly quick wrists to run his hands through the ball, even against fast bowlers. He is equally adept against pace and spin, and never looks ungainly at the crease. Also, with nimble foot-movement against the spinners, he is known to be quite destructive when the situation demands it. He has had to fill some rather big shoes of his predecessors, and has done an admirable job to say the least.
Captaincy and a change in technique
With regular captain MSD ailing from an injury, Vi rat was named stand-in captain for the first Test at Adelaide. After a downfall tour of England, critics were skeptical of his performance in Australia in the test trophy in December. He proved that they couldn't have been more wrong, as he scored two fluent hundreds in the first Test at Adelaide. His second innings masterclass of 141 almost pulled off a stunning run-chase on a notorious 5th day rank-turner, and went on to score a total of four hundreds on this tour. Saying that he had silenced critics would be an understatement.
As India prepared for their title defense ahead of the 2015 World Cup Down Under, with the catchphrase 'Won't give it back' doing the rounds, Vi rat was touted to be a key performer for India. And the Indians had a terrible run in Australia, having failed to win a single match in the Test series as well as the succeeding one-day international's series. He started off in signature fashion, with a typically stroke-filled hundred against Pakistan, as India maintained their unbeaten run against their arch-rivals in ICC events. India has stormed into the semi-finals unbeaten, his form continued to take an uncharacteristic dip, culminating in a painstaking 1 in the semi-final loss against the co-hosts and eventual champions, Australia.
Vi rat, the then full-time Test captain, toured Sri Lanka with a young side without the services of MSD, wary of the Sri Lankan spinners' fabled 4th innings con-job. And After losing the first Test, Vi rat India recorded a dramatic come-from-behind win in the series, going on to win 2-1. He continued to build on his auspicious start to Test captaincy as he led them to a rout of the South Africans on a series of rank-turners all around India. Vi rat had a quiet series with the bat, as the more Stoic batsmen of his team took over. And the triumph took the nation to the Number One spot in the ICC Test rankings for the first time since they forfeited it to England after the forgettable whitewash in 2011.
He continued his emphatic run in T20 cricket (and running) like a man possessed, though thrashing boundaries with ridiculous ease. Despite an 89* in the 2016 semi-final against the West Indies (extending his inhuman run of form in the format), India's bowling panicked at a crucial stage. Where One had to feel sorry for him as he had to make do with the 'Player of the tournament' award for the second successive Twenty20 World Cup; a distinction he would've gladly exchanged for the elusive World T20 trophy. His thirst for runs showed no signs of slowing down as he looted a small matter of 973 runs during the 2016 edition of the Indian Premier League, the most (by far) by any batsman in the history of the tournament - as he led his Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) franchise to a runners-up finish.
However, it isn't beyond Vi rat to prove his critics wrong yet again, as he continues to take criticism on his stride, setting new standards for modern batsman ship. And as a captain, he had his ups and downs, marred with a bit of controversy towards the end of his tenure. He also became the first Indian, as well as the first Asian captain, to return victorious from Down Under when India won the 4-match Test series 2-1 (2018-19). Under him, India also emerged as the number one Test side for five successive years (2016-2021).
The final frontier In
In the first week of 2018, He went on to lead India in South Africa, a few weeks after he tied the knot with Indian actress and long-time girlfriend, Anushka Sharma. India went on to concede the series in the first two tests, but came back to win the third Test match on a difficult wicket. In a series full of difficult wickets, Vi rat exhibited tighter technique than he had in England, and batted better than he did in his more prolific tour of South Africa in 2013/14. He went on to conquer his (personal) final frontier in England later in 2018 too, scoring 593 runs in 10 innings, including 2 hundreds, and not conceding his wicket to his fabled nemesis, Anderson, even once. India went on to lose the series 1-4, and his record as captain was tainted by two consecutive Test series losses away.
Nevertheless, on a personal level, he had left no stone unturned to transform himself into the most consistent and versatile batsman of his age, and arguably the best of the Big Four. On October 2018, during the second of 3 consecutive hundreds against the West Indies in one day internationals, he went on to become the fastest batsmen to reach the 10,000-run mark in one day internationals, trouncing god of cricket by a staggering 54 innings. Despite arguments about the two new balls, better bats, batting-friendly conditions, and more lethal bowlers, it was difficult to deny that this was a statistical outlier, very much along the lines of 99.94 - perhaps unlikely to ever be trounced.
However, being a cricket romantic (as we all are), as we reflect on his prolific international career (and with a plethora of records to be broken over the next decade) one must look back at the CB series knock that changed it all. On that fateful night at Hobart, he had not only kept his team in contention, he had actually dragged a drained Indian side out of the airport. At the Belle rive Oval, Virat Kohli transcended into a league of his own to etch his name in history - and a cricketing superstar was born.
IPL through the years
Ahead of the 2019 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Vi rat showed how much faith he had in the franchise by declaring that he would perhaps end his career with the Bangalore-based Royal Challengers. The only player to be a part of a single franchise for the entire duration of the tournament (right from the start of the cash-rich league in 2008), he has developed an affection with the franchise and with the fans over the period of time.
Having been brought into the franchise as a young, emerging player in 2008, his growth has been stupendous. He learned under the wings of Rahul and Anil, before finally establishing himself under Daniel. It wasn't a free-flowing start, in a team that was struggling to find the essence of the tournament, it wasn't a surprise that they had a struggling youngster in the midst. Having learned the ropes in the first three-year cycle, it wasn't a surprise that he was the only player retained in 2011. He then proved it wasn't just a purple patch, it was a career that was beginning to flourish. After that, he became the best in all aspects, not just white-ball cricket, but in the red-ball version as well.
It became a no-brainer when he was asked to captain the Bangalore franchise on a permanent basis from 2012, And it also translated into more consistency with the bat. He soon turned into a fan favorite even as runs flowed from his bat and eventually becoming the leading-run scorer in the history of IPL. Circa, 2016 - the India and RCB captain blasted 973 runs - the most by any player in the history of the game, And it included four hundreds - the most by a batsman in a single edition. Alas, all this didn't translate into a title triumph - one that has kept Vi rat and Bangalore waiting so far (As of March 2023).
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