Virat Kohli completes seven years in international cricket

Virat Kohli got off to an indifferent start and was dropped before returning to the squad after a gap of almost a year. (Source: Reuters)

Virat Kohli, India Test captain, completes seven years in international cricket on Tuesday. The 26-year-old made his debut on August 18, 2008 against Sri Lanka at Dambulla where he scored 12 runs.

Kohli’s journey from an aggressive under-19 player to Test captain has been nothing short of extraordinary.

Before he broke into the international scene, fans and experts had a glimpse of the Kohli’s in-your-face celebration after India’s win in 2008 under-19 World Cup in Malaysia where they beat South Africa by 12 runs in a rain-marred final.

jQuery(document).ready(function(){ jQuery('.rel-article').bxSlider({ maxSlides: 6, slideMargin: 3 }); });

Kohli, who opened the innings in his debut for India, got off to an indifferent start and was dropped before returning to the squad after a gap of almost a year. His next assignment was the ICC Champions Trophy in South Africa.

The runs then started to flow as Kohli scored a classy 79 against West Indies in Johannesburg. And followed it up with some solid scores of 91 and 71 which were followed by his debut hundred against Bangladesh.

Kohli, since then, has amassed 6,586 runs in ODIs while he has 2,667 runs in Test cricket.

Such was his impact that he was named the captain of the Indian team for a series in Zimbabwe within 3 years and was soon promoted as the vice-captain. He went onto become the Test captain of the Indian cricket team following MS Dhoni’s decision to hang his boots from the longer format of the game.