Virat Kohli — The GOAT
Early days : Virat Kohli’s tryst with cricket began at the tender age of 9, a young boy with dream in his eyes and a bat in his hands took his first steps towards becoming a cricket legend. He took coaching from West Delhi Cricket Academy under Raj Sharma sir, which was the turning point of his life.
He showed his talent from the under 16 days in the Delhi circuit where he won laurels for the local teams. Even in his colony, he used to play with his elders and gave them a tough fight.
Virat Kohli is a flamboyant and determined player who had luck to dawn the blue Indian jersey. He led his side in the U-19 world-cup and won it for us and that began his golden glory to become the legend. He was destined to be India’s next big batsman as the Tendulkar era began to retire. He was later that year selected for the national Indian side for the Sri-Lankan series.
Virat kohli worked hard and was part of the 2011 world-cup and 2013 champions trophy winning team and since then he has been a consistent part of the Indian setup.
He is an extraordinary player who when plays looks like he is playing on some other planet. He middles the ball so beautifully that the whole world admires him. His passion and determination for the game is at different level.
When he was handed the Indian test captaincy, his game was improved but he did not feel 100% confident about himself as if something was lacking in his body, yes you guessed it right, it was fitness that was troubling him. Thereafter, he completely transformed himself and changed the definiton of fitness in the Indian dressing room, he is widely credited for changing the fitness culture in Indian cricket, introducing endurance tests as a criterion for selection. All cricketers started focussing on their fitness and diets, this was the influence of Virat Kohli, since then he has never had a cheat diet even on a single day.
When we talk about his records, no one is even near him in the modern cricket. He is the fastest batsman to score 10,000 , 11,000, 12,000 runs. He is the only batsman to have had an average of 50+ across formats. No other batsmen has achieved this milestone. He currently has 76 hundreds and 131 half centuries to his name. He is just behind the god of cricket, Sachin Tendulkar in terms of centuries who has 100 centuries in his bag. He is a living legend who when walks on to ground, gives his 200% to make his team win in any situation.
The world admires him in awe when he bats and especially when it comes down to chasing the total, he is best in the business and often recjkon as chase master. Agression is the word that perfectly describes him and his character. No oppositon is happy to face him , because they are aware once he starts dominating, then there is no chance for the opposition to win the matches. He led India to a long stay at №1 in Test rankings and a first-ever series win in Australia. He is one of the most successful captains India has ever produced.
Later in 2017, he was given ODI and T20 captaincy, making him captain across formats, where under his captaincy the Indian team embarked on an unbeaten streak of winning matches and rising high. Those were the golden years of his carrier both as a cricketer and as a cricket player. But his bad patch started in 2019 where his average went down as if the fuel of an airplane had finished, and he was struggling to convert the small starts into big totals. His confidence was as low as that of a kid.
But yes good things take time and he was finally able to regain his shape after 3 years in 2021, where he a wonderful century and is getting close to hundred centuries.