Virat Kohli is not just a cricketer but a hope for Indian fans. He is the hope who turned India’s 3.1% winning chance into 100% on the Melbourne ground.
Harsha Bhogle [in commentary] : “Kohli goes down the ground, Kohli goes out of the ground.”
By playing a not-out innings of 82* runs, he made India win an almost impossible match. Due to Virat’s consistency and aggressive approach, Indian cricket had reached a new height.But then came the darkest phase of Virat’s career, where getting runs from his bat seemed to have stopped. His ODI captaincy was also taken away from him, and some people did not even want to see him in the playing eleven.
Kapil Dev remarked that: “even the world’s number one player can sit outside.”
On 23rd November 2019, Virat scored his 70th century. But to score his 71st century, he had to wait for 1019 days. But after all why? Why did Virat have to wait so long?Today we will look at “the Rise, Fall and Comeback of Virat Kohli”.
After the 2011 World Cup, all the senior players were gradually retiring, due to which young players were getting more chances. So Virat is selected for the 2011 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. In the first match, he scored 11 and 0 runs. But this wasn’t the problem. Many senior players who were familiar with Australian conditions were also included in this tour. But Virat was visiting Australia for the first time. In the match, they were sledging. But along with them, the crowd was also sledging the Indian players very badly. This was bothering Virat somewhere deep down. So when he was standing near the boundary during the second test, the Australian crowd started abusing him. At this moment, Virat showed a bad gesture to the Australian crowd, because of which he had to pay 50% of his match fees as a fine. The next day, this photo of his was on the front page of almost every Australian newspaper. In the 4th and last test match, Virat gave a reply to the Australian players with his bat and scored his first Test century. Where other Indian players stay away from sledging, Virat sledges back at Australians. India lost that series 4-0. But because of this century by Virat, everyone started talking about him.
But due to getting early success, Virat started taking everything for granted. Clubbing, late-night parties, eating junk food, and skipping the gym, it was as if all of this had become his habit. Because of this, his performance kept getting worse. In the 2012 IPL, he scored 364 runs with a strike rate of 111 and his average was also only 28. In fact, out of 16 innings, he scored more than 30 runs in only 4 innings.Then one day, when Virat saw himself shirtless in the mirror, he realized that an international cricketer can’t look like this.
Virat Kohli [interview]: “Boom! From the next day onwards, I just changed everything about my diet. Within 8 to 10 months, I lost about 6 to 7 kg.”
From 2011 to 2014, Virat completely transformed himself. Not just physically, he had also become very strong mentally. And its results were visible to him in the matches as well. During the 2014 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Virat’s captaincy era had also begun. Virat stood in as captain in the first test match because MS Dhoni was injured. MS Dhoni was back in the second match. In that match, there was a face-off between Virat and Mitchell Johnson, which became very popular till now. Mitchell Johnson threw the ball toward Virat Kohli while he was at the crease. An argument took place, and Virat said this in the press conference-
Virat Kohli: “Someone who does not respect me, I have got no reason to respect him. I am out here to play cricket, not to earn anyone’s respect.”
Where we lost the 2011 Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) 4-0, we lost the 2014 BGT 2-0. We lost the first two matches, but the last two matches were drawn. After the 3rd test match, MS Dhoni retired from Test cricket, and Virat became the full-time Test captain of Team India.At this point, India was ranked 7th in the Test rankings. And in just 21 months, by October 2016, India had reached number one in the Test rankings.
From 2016 to 2021, India was number one in the Test rankings. And the reason for this is Virat Kohli, as he has 5 Test maces. Crazy, right! Yet some people consider Virat a failed captain.If we talk about limited-over formats, India reached the 2017 Champions Trophy final and the 2019 ODI World Cup semi-finals under Virat’s captaincy. Unfortunately, we lost both of those crucial matches. But in bilateral series, Virat created a lot of records. Like, he became the Indian captain with the most wins in bilateral ODI series. He won a total of 15 bilateral series. Under his captaincy India’s win percentage was also the highest. In fact, it was even better than MS Dhoni’s, which was 70.43%. And when it came to overseas victories, Virat became the first Indian captain to win ODI series on the soil of South Africa and Australia. With every match, Virat’s performance kept improving. From fans to ex-cricketers, everyone was impressed by Virat’s aggressive approach and consistency.
But then came a dark phase for Virat Kohli, which no one could have even imagined, perhaps not even Virat Kohli himself. On 23rd November 2019, Virat scored his 70th century in a Test match against Bangladesh. Everyone thought that Virat would easily break Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 100 centuries. But in 2020 and 2021, Virat did not score a single century. In the 2021 T20 World Cup, India was knocked out in the league stage for the first time. To manage his workload, he stepped down from T20 captaincy and wanted to continue as captain in ODIs and Tests. But then, the BCCI stripped him of his ODI captaincy.
Virat Kohli [on interview]: “At that time, I communicated that yes, I would like to continue as captain in ODIs and Tests.”
At the start of 2023, when a sting operation was conducted on former Chairman of the National Selection Committee and Indian cricketer Chetan Sharma, he exposed many secrets related to the Indian cricket team. He even went on to say that Virat Kohli was not removed from captaincy because he couldn’t win an ICC trophy, but that decision was taken due to his bad behavior with seniors. At that time, Sourav Ganguly was the BCCI president, and everyone started blaming him. Because according to rumors, relations between Virat Kohli and Sourav Ganguly were not good. On 10th December 2021, Sourav Ganguly said in an interview that he had personally told Virat not to leave the T20 captaincy. But Virat, in an interview held on 15th December 2021, said, ‘I was never told not to leave the T20 captaincy; instead, it was well-received.’ And on 15th January 2022, he left his Test captaincy as well. BCCI was not ready for this decision either.
After all this drama, Virat finally scored his 71st century against Afghanistan in the 2022 Asia cup, and this was also his first T20 century. His form returned, and he was also the top run-scorer in the 2022 T20 World Cup.
In the 2023 ODI World Cup, he scored 765 runs in just 11 innings, which is the highest number of runs by any player in World Cup history to date. In this tournament, he scored six fifties and 3 centuries, with an average of 95.63. In the semifinal match against New Zealand, he scored his 50th ODI century and became the first and only cricketer in the world to do so. He was also awarded the Player of the Tournament in this World Cup. But we all know that we lost a well-deserved World Cup.
“But after this, India won the 2024 T20 World Cup. Virat had not contributed anything special with the bat during the tournament. But in the final match, he played a crucial innings of 76 runs to take India to a defendable total. And after the match, Virat, Rohit, and Jadeja announced their retirement from T20 internationals.
The 2025 Border-Gavaskar Trophy is a tournament that every Indian cricket fan would want to forget. In the first test match, Virat scored a century in the second innings and India won the 1st match. But after that, in almost every match, Virat was getting out by edging balls outside the off-stump. Neither Virat nor the rest of the Indian team was in form. Result: we lost the series by 1-3.
After this, we won the 2025 Champions Trophy, in which Virat scored 218 runs in five matches with one century against Pakistan.Suddenly, during the 2025 IPL, on 12th May 2025, Virat posted that he had retired from Test cricket. Virat is still active in the ODI format. The 2023 World Cup was a heartbreak for all of us, and perhaps that is why he is active in ODIs. And Virat would want to complete that story by winning the 2027 World Cup. And perhaps that will be his last tournament. And Virat himself has given confirmation of this. Virat’s journey teaches us that if we put in our full effort and your intention is right, then no one can stop you from being successful in life.”
Is Virat Kohli Really the GOAT?
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