On This Day In 2008, Virat Kohli Made His First Appearance In International Cricket Against Sri Lanka

On this day in 2008, Indian ace batsman Virat Kohli made his first appearance in international cricket against Sri Lanka as a replacement for injured Sachin Tendulkar. If you look at his batting in that match, he was a bit nervous and struggling to score runs as it was his first match at the highest level. Sri Lankan bowling line up was consisted of Chaminda Vaas, Nuwan Kulasekarara, and Muttiah Muralitharan. The 32 years old only managed to survive for 22 balls and score 12 runs.

Nobody could imagine that the 18-year-old would be a modern-day legend one day and conquer the world with his fearless and consistent batting. From an ordinary batter to a world-class the change has been phenomenal. Whether it is Test, ODI, or T20I he has always been exceptional and won many matches single-handedly. 

In the ODI format, Kohli has amassed 12169 runs in 254 games at an impressive average of 59.07. He has possessed the same energy in the test also, scoring 7609 runs in 94 matches. If you talk about T20I cricket, he has done miracles there too,  3159 runs in 94 games at an average of 52.65. These make him the only batsman in the world to maintain an average of 50 across all formats. 

When It comes to the ICC trophy win, Virat Kohli has won two ICC events with team India- 2011 World Cup & 2013 Champions Trophy. Despite having played important knocks in the 2014 T20 World Cup final and 2016 T20 World Cup semi-finals, ended up on the losing side. 

As a captain, Virat Kohli first won the 2008 U-19 World Cup. After the conclusion of Dhoni’s captaincy career in 2017, Virat took over as the full-time captain of the Indian side in all three formats. He has done pretty well as a captain also but not winning an ICC event has let netizens criticize his captaincy. One cannot deny the fact that India won many iconic series such as – ODI series in South Africa (2018), the ODI series in Australia and South Africa (2018), the Test series in Australia (2018), and the T20 series win in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa & England and all the home series except few. 

India was always unbeatable at home in tests, but Kohli-led India has won 5 test matches in Sena counties, the most by any Indian captain. Our nation has become the best test side irrespective of the condition from 2017 onwards, and the credit goes to the captain for instilling an aggressive approach within his players. India has become a fast bowling-dominating nation around the globe. 

Hopefully, after 13 years also we would see plenty of runs from the Indian great and maybe few ICC trophies.