Full Name
Virat Kohli
Born
November 05, 1988, Delhi
Age
36y 257d
Batting Style
Right hand Bat
Bowling Style
Right arm Medium
Playing Role
Top order Batter
TEAMS
IndiaDelhiRoyal Challengers BengaluruIndia AIndia BlueIndia Emerging PlayersIndia RedIndia Under-19sIndian Board President’s XINorth ZoneOil & Natural Gas CorporationRest of India
Virat Kohli player profile
India has given to the world many a great cricketer but none as ambitious as Virat Kohli. To meet his ambition, Kohli employed the technical assiduousness of Sachin Tendulkar and fitness that was in the league of top athletes in the world, not just cricketers. As a result, Kohli became the most consistent all-format accumulator of his time, making jaw-dropping chases look easy, and finding, in his own words, the safest possible way to score runs. Plenty of them.
This ambition transferred seamlessly to his captaincy: he demanded more than ever before of his bowlers, especially the quick ones, often sacrificed a batter for bowling depth, and led India to a long stay at No. 1 in the Test rankings and a first-ever Test series win in Australia. India won 40 out of the 68 Tests in which Kohli led, making him the fourth-most successful captain in the world, behind Graeme Smith, Ricky Ponting and Steve Waugh.
Kohli scored Test hundreds in and against every country he played, other than in Bangladesh. He smashed records for number of matches taken to reach eight, nine, ten and eleven thousand ODI runs, and became the first batter to score 50 hundreds in ODIs – getting to the milestone in the 2023 World Cup semi-final, in the presence of Tendulkar, the man whose record he broke.
Between 2016 and 2018, Kohli scored 3596 runs in 35 Tests at an average of 66.59, with 14 hundreds and eight fifties in 58 innings, with the 2018 tour of England being a high point. There was a dip thereafter – his average, over 55 at its peak after he scored his career-best of 254 against South Africa in Pune in 2019, slipped to around 46 by the end.
He retired from Test cricket midway through IPL 2025. Fans turned up in whites at the Chinnaswamy for his next match to pay tribute to his red-ball career. The encounter was rained off but the sentiment remained: an appropriate display of affection for a player who had revitalised the home crowd’s love for five-day cricket, yet ended his career with an average of 30.72 in his final 39 Tests.
If a hint of what could have been remained about his Test career – ending with 9230 runs, the least prolific among the Fab Four – he seemed to be at peace with what was. He would soon go on to win the IPL trophy for the first time, on his 18th attempt, and declare the victory to still be “five levels under Test cricket”.
Kohli is a world champion multiple times over, having captained India to the 2008 Under-19 World Cup title and winning four more ICC trophies with the senior side: the 50-over World Cup in 2011, Champions Trophies in 2013 and 2025, and the 2024 T20 World Cup, where he scored 76 in the final.
When he burst onto the scene, Kohli was a precocious talent with a cover drive to kill for. He was destined to be India’s next big batter as the batting greats of the previous era began to retire, but Kohli wanted to be more: a cricketer whom the opposition would be in awe of, a cricketer whose presence would raise the intensity of the contest. He lived every ball, competed each moment, and made sure he had the fitness and strength to do so. He was widely credited for changing attitudes towards fitness in Indian cricket, introducing endurance tests as a criterion for selection.
He was quite simply India’s most powerful captain. At the centre of every marketing campaign for Indian cricket, he also happened to lead at a time when the BCCI was run by interim administrators who knew better than to draw the ire of Indian cricket’s biggest star. There was never any cause to doubt his intent: to do things that will win matches for India, which they did plenty under him.
Virat Kohli IPL factfile
– Virat Kohli is the only player in the Indian Premier League (IPL) to have played all seasons for one team: Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB)
– He was picked by RCB soon after he captained India to victory in the 2008 Under-19 World Cup and has been retained by them ever since
– Kohli is the IPL’s highest run-scorer and the only one with more than 8000 runs
– He holds the record for most IPL centuries (eight) as well as most runs in a season (973 in 2016). He has won the Orange Cap twice – in 2016 and 2024
– Kohli captained RCB full-time from 2013 to 2021 and led them to the final in the 2016 season, when they lost to Sunrisers Hyderabad
– After the near-miss in 2016, and an earlier final against Chennai Super Kings in 2011, Kohli won the IPL for the first time in 2025, under Rajat Patidar’s leadership
– Kohli holds the record for the most prolific partnerships in the IPL, with AB de Villiers (3123 runs) and Chris Gayle (2787 runs
Virat Kohli is an Indian cricketer and a former captain of the Indian national cricket team. A right-handed top-order batsman, he has made 82 centuries in international cricket—30 in Test cricket, 51 in One Day Internationals (ODIs) and 1 in Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is).[a]
Kohli made his debut against Sri Lanka in August 2008,[2] and scored his first century the following year when he made 107 against the same team at Eden Gardens, Kolkata. His 86-ball 133 not out against Sri Lanka in February 2012 led India to the second highest run-chase by any team in Australia.[b][4][5] Former Australian cricketer Dean Jones described the innings as “One of the greatest ODI knocks of all time!”.[6] Kohli’s highest score of 183 came against Pakistan during the 2012 Asia Cup; India successfully chased a target of 330 set by Pakistan and Kohli was adjudged man of the match. Following that, he made his first century as a captain while playing against the West Indies in the 2013 Triangular Series.[7] In the bilateral series against Australia in October 2013, Kohli made two centuries in successful run-chases. The first of the two, 100 not out, was scored off 52 balls and remains the fastest ODI century by an Indian.[8] The next century, which was scored off 61 balls, remains the third-fastest by an Indian as of September 2019.[9] In November 2023, he went past Sachin Tendulkar‘s record for most ODI centuries when he made his 50th century in the format; he scored 117 against New Zealand at the 2023 Cricket World Cup knockout stage.[10][11][12]
Kohli made his Test debut against the West Indies in 2011 and scored his first century in the format during the Australian tour in January 2012.[2] In the first Test of the 2014–15 Border–Gavaskar Trophy, he became the fourth Indian player to score centuries in both innings of a Test match after making 115 and 141.[c][14] He was appointed as the captain of the Test team during the series and became the first player to score centuries in each of his first three Test innings as captain. In 2016, Kohli became the fifth player to score three or more double centuries in a calendar year.[d] The following year, he repeated the feat and also became the first batsman to score four double centuries in consecutive Test series.[15][16] His seven double centuries is the joint fourth-most by a player.[e] In 2017, he became the first captain to score ten centuries in a calendar year.[18] Following year, he scored eleven centuries, second-most in a calendar year to Tendulkar.[19] In 2019, Kohli scored seven centuries which included five ODI-centuries. Moreover, he scored his highest score in Test-cricket against South Africa. In December 2022, Kohli scored a hundred against Bangladesh in the third ODI to surpass Ricky Ponting‘s record of 71 centuries in international cricket.[20]
Kohli scored his only T20I hundred, his first century in international cricket in nearly three years, against Afghanistan at the 2022 Asia Cup.[f] The following year, he scored 186 against Australia in the first innings of the fourth Test.[g] He would score another century in the third innings of the first Test against Australia in November 2024; this would turn out to be his last Test century due to his retirement from the format in May 2025.[24]
Key
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| * | Remained not out |
| † | Man of the match |
| ‡ | Captained the Indian cricket team |
| Balls | Balls faced |
| Pos. | Position in the batting order |
| Inn. | The innings of the match |
| S/R | Strike rate during the innings |
| H/A/N | Venue was at home (India), away or neutral |
| Date | Match starting day |
| Lost | The match was lost by India |
| Won | The match was won by India |
| Drawn | The match was drawn |
| (D/L) | The result of the match was based upon the Duckworth–Lewis method |
Test centuries
Footnotes
- Kohli is second on the all-time list, only behind Sachin Tendulkar with 100 centuries.[1]
- India reached their target of 321 runs in 36.4 overs.[3]
- He is the second player to achieve this feat on captaincy debut; the first being Greg Chappell.[13]
- The feat was previously achieved by Don Bradman (in 1930), Ricky Ponting (in 2003) and Brendon McCullum (in 2014).
- His seven double-centuries are the most by a captain.[17]
- The century was scored after 1,021 days from his previous hundred[21][22]
- It was his first Test century in over three years.[23]
Team India’s batting stalwart Virat Kohli can rightfully be deemed as one of the modern-day greats. Kohli is a batting colossus, and in his international career which has already passed a decade, the former Indian skipper made the lives of bowlers across the world miserable.
The batting legend has scored over 26,000 runs in international cricket thus far and is only the second Indian batter after Sachin Tendulkar to score over 25,000 runs in the international arena. Kohli also stands second in the list of batters with the most centuries in international cricket, with 82 tons to his name. In his latest outing against the arch-rivals Pakistan in the Champions Trophy 2025, the Delhi-based batter ended his poor form and played a match-winning knock, en route to an unbeaten (100* off 111 balls) century.
Virat Kohli Total Centuries in All Formats
| Format | Matches | 100s |
|---|---|---|
| Tests | 119 | 30 |
| ODIs | 301 | 51 |
| T20Is | 125 | 1 |
| IPL | 237 | 8 |
20 Jun 2025