Know your Cricketer: Virat Kohli; Nickname Cheeku

 

Virat Kohli was born on 5th November 1988 in Delhi. He was born in Punjabi Khatri Hindu Family to Prem Kohli a Criminal Lawyer and Saroj Kohli a housewife. He has two older siblings Vikas and Bhawna. In his early age, when he was 3 years he shown love to the cricket, he just picks the bat and play naturally, he asked his father to throw him the ball.

In 1988, on 30th May, the West Delhi Cricket Academy (WDCA) was created. Kohli’s father supported him and seeing Kohli’s enthusiasm for Cricket arranged him to meet Rajkumar Sharma. Earlier Rajkumar perceived Kohli like just another enthusiastic young boy for Cricket. But two weeks later, Sharma was impressed with the accuracy and power in throwing of Virat Kohli. Kohli’s father enrolled him in a professional Cricket academy. Kohli couldn’t make the place in U-14 Delhi Team, it was not due to that he was lacking in merit but due to some extraneous factors (nepotism). Prem Kohli received many offers from other influential clubs to send Kohli to them. But he declined all the proposal having belief in Kohli’s merits that he should earn his recognition on his own to overcome the system and nepotism. Kohli followed what his father said and he found his place in U-15 Delhi Team. Kohli received training at the academy while participating in the matches at the Sumeet Dogra Academy. 



On the 19th December 2006, Kohli lost his father. His father was a great support for him during his childhood. He played a crucial role in his childhood training. The things after then change for him and his family. His mother observed a significant change and Kohli began to take every match seriously. After 2015, Kohli along with his family were relocated to Gurgaon. 

Domestic Career

Under-15
In October 2002, Kohli played for Polly Umrigar Trophy. He scored 172 runs in the tournament and became the lead-scorer of the Team. In 2003-04 for the same Trophy, he was elected as the Captain and scored 390 runs in 5 innings including two centuries and two fifties. He was then selected for the Under-17, 2004-05 Vijay Merchant Trophy. He scored a total of 470 runs in the tournament with two centuries and became top-scorer with 251* runs in that tournament. Next year, this trophy was won by the Delhi U-17 Team in which Kohli was again the highest scorer with 757 runs from 7 matches with two centuries.

In February 2006 his List A debut happened but he did not get a chance to bat for Delhi against Services. In the same year he made his first-class debut against Tamil Nadu. 



In December 2006, Kohli came into the spotlight when he decided to play for his Team against Karnataka on the day of his father’s demise and he went to score 90 runs. He directly went to the funeral after he dismissed from the match. Delhi captain Mithun Manhas said, "That is an act of great commitment to the team and his innings turned out to be crucial" while coach Chetan Chauhan lauded Kohli's "attitude and determination." He scored a total of 257 runs from 6 matches.

In April 2007, Kohli made his T20 debut and scored highest 179 runs in the Inter-State T20 Championship. In September 2008, Kohli played against SNGPL in Nissar Trophy, there also he was the highest scorer.

Under-19
In July 2006, Kohli was selected for the U-19 Squad for England Tour. There were three-match ODI series and three-match Test series played which both were won by U-19 Team. Coach Lalchand Rajput was impressed with Kohli’s performance and said, "Kohli showed strong technical skills against both pace and spin". Then in September U-19 Team made a tour of Pakistan.



In July-Aug 2007, for Triangular Series, Team toured to Sri Lanka. This time Kohli was the second highest run scorer with 146 runs from 5 matches. 

In Feb-Mar 2008, Kohli lead the Team of U-19 for Malaysia World Cup. He scored 235 runs in 6 matches. In the tournament he was the third highest scorer with one century.

In June 2008, Kohli and his Under-19 teammates Pradeep Sangwan and Tanmay Srivastava were awarded the Border-Gavaskar scholarship. The scholarship allowed the three players to train for six weeks at Cricket Australia's Centre of Excellence in Brisbane.

International Career
Kohli made his debut into his International Career in the year 2008 at the age of 19. He was made the part of the ODI Squad for Sri Lanka Tour and Champions Trophy in Pakistan. At the time he was having less experience and his selection was a surprise call for others.

In the Sri Lankan Tour, Kohli get the chance to bat in the opener position for the series as both the opener players Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag were unable to play due to running injury. In the first match he was dismissed for 12 runs. However, in the fourth match of the series, he hit his first ODI career half-century by scoring 54 runs.

In the same year September, Kohli got another opportunity to replace injured Shikhar Dhawan in India A squad against Australia A where he scored 49 runs. In October 2008, Kohli played in four-day tour match against Australia where the Australian Team bowling line-up was very strong, despite this, Kohli shown a good performance and scored 104 runs in first innings and 16 unbeaten runs in second innings which helped him to excel into his International Career and proved his ability to perform.



In the end of 2008, he was awarded Grade D contract by BCCI, as a part of annual contract list for Indian National Team, he received ₹1.5 millions. Although, in January, he was dropped from the five-match ODI series against Sri Lanka.

In July-Aug 2009, a four-team Emerging Players Tournament held in Australia in which Kohli was selected as the opener for the tournament. From the seven matches in the Tournament, Kohli was the highest run-scorer with a total of 398 runs. In the final match his performance was quite impressive where he scored 104 runs for 102 balls against South Africa. 

In August 2009, Kohli replaced Gautam Gambhir due to his injury in a tri-series against Sri Lanka. This was the return of Kohli to the Indian National Team after one minor shoulder injury. In the same year he replaced injured Yuvraj Singh in ICC Champions Trophy. In the end of 2009, Kohli played Home ODI Series against Sri Lanka. Kohli scored his maiden ODI century with 107 runs for 114 balls. 

Before the age of 22, Kohli became the third Indian Player to score two ODI centuries when he was playing tri-nation ODI tournament in Bangladesh in the year 2010. He was also the highest run-scorer with 275 runs from five-innings in the tournament. At his performance, Captain MS Dhoni mentioned "To us, he comes as a 'humble guy'. He might come across different to the world." 



In May-June 2010 for a tri-series against Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, he was appointed as vice-captain of the Team. During the time Kohli became fastest Indian Batsman to reach 1000 runs in ODI career in 26 innings and also made the International T20 debut against Zimbabwe.  

Kohli was selected for the Asia Cup 2010 as third order batsman. There his performance was somehow dropped and the effect was also seen in the tri-series played against Sri Lanka and New Zealand.  

In October 2010, despite his performance he was retained in the ODI Squad for a three-match series against Australia. He manages to score a century in the tournament which helped him to earn man of the match award.  



Later in home ODI against New Zealand, he again scored another century thereby completing his fourth ODI career century and helped the Team to win the Tournament. He was India's leading run-scorer in ODIs in 2010, accumulating 995 runs from 25 matches at an average of 47.38, including three centuries and seven half-centuries.

In January 2011, Kohli became the India’s leading run scorer in five-match ODI series against South Aftica.

 IPL Career
Kohli was bought by Royal Challengers Bangalore for USD 30000 as a part of youth contract by looking at his performance in U-19 World Cup. In his IPL career starting from 2008 till 2022 he scored a total of 7048 runs in 238 matches including 5 centuries, 46 fifties, 232 sixers and 623 boundaries. From 2013 to 2021 season, Virat Kohli was made captain of the RCB Team. RCB never won the title of IPL but finished as the runner-up in 2009,2011 and 2016. In 2016 it was the first time that RCB could made it to the finals under the captaincy of Virat Kohli but lost the match to Gujarat Lions.



In 2013, Kohli performance was strong and he scored 634 runs in the tournament. In the match against Delhi Daredevils, Kohli missed by one run to conquer his maiden century and was dismissed at 99 runs. 2014 season was not the good for him where he scored 359 runs in total. In 2015, he finished the season at the fifth highest run-scorer with a total of 505 runs.

In 2016 IPL season, in the 16 matches Kohli scored 973 runs and his Team was finished as runner-up. He was awarded Most Valuable Player Award of the Vivo IPL 2016.  

In 2017, due to shoulder injury, Kohli couldn’t participated. In 2018, Kohli was retained by the franchise for USD 2.1 million, he was the highest paid player for that year. During IPL 2019, Kohli completed his 5000 career runs. During 2020 & 2021, he scored 466 & 405 runs respectively.

In the year 2022, Kohli was retained by RCB for USD 1.9 million. Kohli was not the captain of RCB in this season. Kohli managed to score 341 runs in 16 innings. He completed his target of 7000 runs.