Virat Kohli
From breaking into the Indian side as an impulsive youngster to becoming a modern-day great -- Virat Kohli’s journey in international cricket has been quite phenomenal. Starting off as a teenager who led the U-19 side to World Cup glory in 2008, Kohli eventually broke into the national side, making his ODI debut for India against Sri Lanka at the age of 19. He also joined Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the inaugural IPL season and has been a part of the Bangalore outfit since then.
Recalling Kohli's early days and his rise in world cricket, ex-India all-rounder Irfan Pathan has said that the current Indian skipper would enjoy himself to the fullest. Despite being all over the news and making it to page 3, Irfan feels Kohli never took his focus off cricket.
"Whenever I used to see Virat Kohli in the IPL, I only saw one player. Someone who was young has reached a certain level and is now enjoying himself on and off the field. The next morning when you opened the newspaper, he was everywhere," Pathan said in a video shared by Star Sports on Twitter.
"But he never sidelined cricket, and always kept his focus. That's why you see Virat Kohli has become such a special player. It shows his commitment to the game."
In the recently-concluded ODI series against England, Kohli became the only second batsman in the history of ODIs to score 10,000 runs while batting at the number three position. He reached the feat during the second match of the series.
After leading India to a 2-1 win in the ODI series, the prolific batsman will be in charge of the RCB squad for the upcoming IPL edition. RCB will begin their IPL 2021 campaign against defending champions Mumbai Indians in the season opener on April 9.
Kohli had recently confirmed that he would be opening the innings for the Bangalore outfit this season. RCB'S Director of Cricket Operations Mike Hesson had also said that the decision on Kohli opening the innings was taken before the IPL auction in February.
"Certainly, we talked about it before the auction because that came in our auction planning in terms of how we wanted to structure our lineup, so certainly no surprise there," Hesson said.
