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Indian cricket team’s former captain, star batsman Virat Kohli (born 5 November 1988) is a right-handed top-order batsman, Kohli is regarded as one of the best batsmen in the world.
Here is a timeline of his career:
- Kohli first played for the Delhi Under-15 team in October 2002 in the 2002–03 Polly Umrigar Trophy. He was the leading run-scorer for his team in that tournament with 172 runs at an average of 34.40.
- He became the captain of the team for the 2003–04 Polly Umrigar Trophy and scored 390 runs in 5 innings at an average of 78 including two centuries and two fifties.
- In late 2004, he was selected in the Delhi Under-17 team for the 2003–04 Vijay Merchant Trophy. He scored 470 runs in four matches at an average of 117.50
- In July 2006, Kohli was selected for the India Under-19 squad on its tour of England. He averaged 105 in the three-match ODI series against England Under-19s and 49 in the three-match Test series.
- Kohli came into the spotlight in December when he decided to play for his team against Karnataka on the day after his father’s death and went on to score 90. He went directly to the funeral after he was dismissed.
- In February–March 2008, Kohli captained the victorious Indian team at the 2008 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup held in Malaysia. Batting at number 3, he scored 235 runs in 6 matches at an average of 47 and finished as the tournament’s third-highest run-getter and one of the three batsmen to score a hundred in the tournament.
- Following the Under-19 World Cup, Kohli was bought by the Indian Premier League franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore for $30,000 on a youth contract.
- In August 2008, Kohli was included in the Indian ODI squad for the tour of Sri Lanka and the Champions Trophy in Pakistan
- Kohli was selected in the four-team Emerging Players Tournament in July–August 2009 held in Australia. He opened the innings for India Emerging Players in that tournament and finished as the leading run-getter with 398 runs from seven matches at an average of 66.33.
- Kohli played in every match of India’s successful World Cup campaign in 2013. In the next four group matches, he had low scores of 8, 34, 12, and 1 against England, Ireland, Netherlands and South Africa respectively. Having returned to form with 59 against the West Indies, he scored only 24 and 9 in the quarter-final against Australia and semi-final against Pakistan respectively.
- Kohli was appointed the vice-captain for the 2012 Asia Cup in Bangladesh on the back of his fine performance in Australia, Kohli was in fine form during the tournament, finishing as the leading run-scorer with 357 runs at an average of 119, His knock was the highest individual score in Asia Cup history.
- In June 2013, Kohli featured in the ICC Champions Trophy in England which India won.
- In 2017, Kohli was ranked 7th in the list released by Forbes as the Most Valuable Brand among athletes, ahead of sportspeople like Lionel Messi, Rory McIlroy, and Stephen Curry, with an estimated brand value of $14.5 million, making him the only Indian and the only cricketer to feature in that list.
- In April 2019, he was named the captain of India’s squad for the 2019 Cricket World Cup. On 16 June 2019, in India’s match against Pakistan, Kohli became the fastest batsman, in terms of innings, to score 11,000 runs in ODI cricket.
- After poor performances for a few years, he lost his captaincy but remained part of the Indian team.
- Kohli finally returned to form spectacularly, scoring his first T20I hundred against Afghanistan in the 2022 Asia Cup.
- In early 2023 Kohli got back to hitting ODI hundreds, beginning with a century against Sri Lanka. Against Australia, he scored his first Test century in three years in the fourth Test in Ahmedabad. He hit another ODI century against Pakistan in the 2023 Asia Cup.
- Kohli broke several records at the 2023 ODI World Cup. He surpassed 1,000 runs in the calendar year in a match against Sri Lanka, marking the eighth time he had done so and breaking Tendulkar’s record of seven such instances.
- Kohli has been out of form throughout the T20 World 2024, so far he has scored only 75 runs in 7 matches.