10 years of Virat Kohli: Year by year in numbers
When you see Virat Kohli today, he gives us the sense that he wants to win all the time. Nothing more can be disheartening for him than a loss. He has often said that it doesn’t matter how many runs he scores if the team loses, he would love it when the team wins even if he scored only 30 in that win. He started off as a brash, aggressive youngster and now, he is the best batsman in the world at the moment.
However, over the years, there have been very few batsmen who have been as consistent as Kohli across formats. In fact, Kohli has scored more runs than any player in international cricket since his debut in 2008. With Kohli completing 10 years in international cricket today (18th August), let’s look back at his numbers on a yearly basis in all three formats.
2008
In 2008, Virat Kohli made his way into the Indian ODI team as a chubby cricketer who had just won the Under-19 World Cup a few months back. He was sent in as a replacement for Virender Sehwag who was injured. Sachin Tendulkar was unavailable for the series as well due to an injury.
He played all 5 games in that series against Sri Lanka and was the makeshift opener. He scratched his way to 12 on debut before getting out LBW. In 5 games, he scored 159 runs at a middling average of 31.80. He scored 54 in the fourth game and also scored 25+ in the rest of the games (barring the first one).
In 2008, it was only these 5 games that Kohli played as both Sehwag and Sachin recovered from injuries and the Delhi youngster was omitted.
2009
In 2009, Virat Kohli got a lot more opportunities and those opportunities came only late in the year. He was back to his preferred middle-order spot (he largely batted at 3 and 4).
He was a part of India’s Champions Trophy squad. He scored a good unbeaten 79 against West Indies in India’s last group stage game. He then played a couple of games against Australia but didn’t do much (he scored 30 and 10). But it was the series against Sri Lanka at home that saw him get a lot more consistent. In the three innings he batted, he got better with every knock. His scores read 27, 54 and 107 in that series. That 107 (his maiden ODI ton) came while chasing 316.
Overall, Kohli finished the year with 325 runs in 8 innings at an average in excess of 54.
