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18 years of ruthless Virat Kohli: The man who refused to stay ordinary

Sandy Verma | August 18, 2026 4:24 PM CST

On August 18, 2008, a 19-year-old Virat Kohli walked out at Dambulla and scored 12 on his India debut. Eighteen years later, the boy who was once a surprise selection has become one of the defining figures of modern cricket: a batter, captain, standard-setter, survivor and, perhaps most importantly, a player who changed what Indian cricket expected from itself.Virat Kohli is not just an athlete; he has become a brand of cricket, inspiring a generation through his mindset, skills and, most importantly, his hunger for the game. That hunger made him more intense, more furious and, at his best, almost unbeatable. Across his career, Kohli has achieved almost everything: the U19 World Cup, ODI World Cup, T20 World Cup, Champions Trophy and Asia Cup.There was nothing particularly prophetic about Virat Kohli’s first international innings.On that day at the Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium in Sri Lanka, the teenager walked out to open India’s innings. He faced 22 balls, made 12 and was trapped lbw by Nuwan Kulasekara.India lost by eight wickets. There was no century. No match-winning chase. No hint, at least in the scorecard, that something extraordinary had begun.

Eighteen years later, the numbers have become difficult to ignore.As of August 2026, Kohli has played 314 ODIs and scored 14,941 runs at 58.59, with 54 hundreds and 79 fifties. He has 9,230 Test runs from 123 matches, including 30 centuries, and finished his T20I career with 4,188 runs from 125 matches. Across international cricket, that is 28,359 runs and 85 centuries.

The boy who learned early that cricket could not wait

Long before Dambulla, there was a December morning in 2006 that revealed something about Kohli that statistics never could. He was 18, playing for Delhi against Karnataka in a Ranji Trophy match at the Feroz Shah Kotla. He was unbeaten on 40 overnight when his father, Prem Kohli, died suddenly. Kohli returned to the ground the next morning. He scored 90. It was not just an innings. It was an early declaration of character.Two years later, he was leading India at the Under-19 World Cup in Malaysia. India won the tournament. Kohli scored 235 runs in six innings at an average of 47.He had a modest start to his international career during the Sri Lanka tour. In the fourth ODI of that 2008 series, Kohli made 54, his first international half-century. A year later came his first hundred: 107 against Sri Lanka in Kolkata.

The World Cup, Tendulkar and the making of a star

By 2011, Kohli was no longer a prospect. He was part of India’s World Cup-winning side. He scored a century against Bangladesh in India’s opening game and later walked into the Wankhede dressing room during the final when India were 31 for 2.He made 35. Not the sort of number that usually survives in a career built on hundreds. His 35 helped India recover alongside Gautam Gambhir, before MS Dhoni’s 91 finished the job against Sri Lanka.India won the World Cup. Kohli was just 22.

Virat Kohli won ODI World Cup alongside Sachin Tendulkar

The chase master tag

The 2012 Asia Cup against Pakistan produced his famous 183, still his highest ODI score. The same year brought a defining chase in Hobart against Sri Lanka, where India needed 321 in 40 overs to stay alive in the tournament. Kohli smashed 133 not out from 86 balls.Captain Kohli: India stopped apologisingMS Dhoni stepped down as captain in Test cricket in 2014 and in limited-overs formats in 2017. Kohli was handed the captaincy, first in Tests in 2015 and then across formats by 2017. From then on, India began to excel in the longest format. The early signs were visible in Australia in 2014-15. Kohli scored hundreds in both innings of the Adelaide Test, making 115 and 141.Kohli soon took India from No. 7 to the No. 1 Test team in the world.

2016: Kohli became the real beast

If 2014-15 established Kohli as a great, 2016 turned him into a sporting phenomenon. He was devastating in every format. Then came the IPL. 973 runs in 16 matches. Four centuries. An average of 81.08. It was a season that seemed to break the accepted limits of T20 batting. Kohli was no longer simply a successful cricketer.The fitness. The diet. The running between wickets. The hunger after reaching fifty. Young Indian cricketers began copying Kohli’s routines because they understood the larger message: talent could get you into the team, but obsession could keep you there.

2018: The captain who conquered overseas cricket

The 2018 season cemented the Test version of Kohli. He scored 1,322 Test runs and was named ICC Men’s Cricketer of the Year.India had always produced great batters. Kohli wanted India to produce great fast bowlers. Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav became the spearhead of an attack that could win Test matches away from home. The defining reward came in Australia in 2018-19, when India won their first Test series on Australian soil.Kohli finished with 68 Tests as captain, 40 wins and 17 defeats, the most Test victories by an Indian captain and the fourth-most in the history of Test cricket.

And then came the fall

From November 2019 to March 2023, Kohli went through 23 Tests and 41 innings without a Test century, averaging only 25.70 during that stretch. His 70th international century came in November 2019.The 71st did not arrive until September 2022, 1,020 days later. In 2021, Kohli stepped down from captaincy, and then he made his comeback.The comeback began with 122*At the 2022 Asia Cup, Kohli finally looked free again. Against Afghanistan, he made 122 not out from 61 balls, his first T20I century and his 71st international hundred. Then came Pakistan at the 2022 T20 World Cup. India needed 160. Kohli made 82 not out from 53 balls.It was not simply another great innings. It was the kind of performance that reminded everyone why his name had become synonymous with pressure.

2023: The year he chased history

At the ODI World Cup in India, Kohli produced one of the greatest individual tournament campaigns in the history of the competition.765 runs in 11 innings. Average: 95.63. He became the first player to score 50 ODI hundreds, surpassing Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 49.He then won back-to-back ICC trophies, the 2024 T20 World Cup and the 2025 Champions Trophy. The following year he retired from Test cricket and T20Is, leaving behind a long-lasting legacy.

Mumbai: India's Virat Kohli celebrates his 50th century, breaking Sachin Tendulk...

Mumbai: India’s Virat Kohli celebrates his 50th century, breaking Sachin Tendulkar’s most ODI hundreds record, during the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 semi-final match between India and New Zealand, at the Wankhede Stadium, in Mumbai. (PTI Photo/Kunal Patil)

And then, finally, Bengaluru gave him his closure

There was one unfinished story left. Royal Challengers Bengaluru. Kohli had been there since the first IPL season in 2008. He had watched the franchise lose finals in 2009, 2011 and 2016. He had carried the weight of an entire fanbase through years of disappointment. Then, in 2025, RCB finally won the IPL. And in 2026, they did it again.Kohli completed his chapter of cricket with every major trophy and countless individual awards to his name. As of August 2026, Kohli is no longer a Test cricketer. He is no longer a T20I cricketer. He is now an ODI specialist for India – still scoring, still competing.