Virat Kohli batted on the morning after his father died
In December 2006 an 18-year-old Delhi batter ended a day's play unbeaten on 40, with his side in trouble against Karnataka. His father died that night. Virat Kohli came back the next morning, took his score to 90, helped his team dodge the follow-on, and only then went to the funeral. His mother says he changed after that.
Kohli grew up in west Delhi, the son of a criminal lawyer, and was already demanding that his father bowl to him at the age of three. Neighbours urged the family to find him proper coaching, and in 1998 he was taken to the new West Delhi Cricket Academy under Rajkumar Sharma. When he missed out on the under-14 state side, his father reportedly turned down offers to move him to well-connected clubs that could have guaranteed selection.
The runs came anyway. As an under-17 player he scored 757 in seven matches in one season, including a 228 in a semi-final against Baroda after promising his coach he would finish the job. His first-class debut arrived in November 2006, and within weeks came that innings against Karnataka. After the loss, those close to him saw a new seriousness; cricket took priority over everything else.
His profile rose in 2008, when he captained India to the under-19 World Cup in Malaysia, where his 100 from 74 balls against West Indies was hailed as the best innings of the event. A surprise call-up to the senior one-day side followed that August, aged 19. His place wobbled until he topped the scoring at the 2009 Emerging Players Tournament, and his first one-day international hundred followed that December against Sri Lanka.
The career that followed is heavy with numbers. He holds the record for one-day international centuries and has 85 hundreds across formats, second only to one player. He became the only Indian to top the rankings in all three formats and the first to reach 20,000 international runs within a single decade, and his ten ICC awards are the most of anyone. After starring in the 2024 T20 World Cup final he quit that format, and in May 2025, at 36, he stepped away from Tests.
Source: Virat Kohli
