Virat Kohli Player Profile: Virat Kohli Stats, Ranking, Records in Cricket

Virat Kohli Player Profile: One of the best cricketers to ever have graced the game of cricket – Virat Kohli has been a blessing to Indian cricket. Kohli rose to fame when he led India to the Under-19 World Cup victory in 2008 in Malaysia. As a result, a 19-year-old Kohli was awarded a youth contract by Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) ahead of the inaugural edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

He scored a mere 165 runs in 13 matches at an average of 15. He scored a little over 500 runs in total in the next two seasons. Ahead of IPL 2011, Kohli was the only player, who was retained by RCB. The Delhi-born batsman was then made the vice-captain of the team. Justifying the faith showed by the Bangalore-based franchise, Kohli amassed a total of 557 runs at an average of 46.41, including 4 fifties. His form declined in IPL 2012, where he managed to score only 364 runs at 28, including two fifties.

In IPL 2013, Kohli was made the captain, following the retirement of New Zealand great Daniel Vettori. While he had a great season with the bat scoring 634 runs at 45.28, including six half-centuries, he could not lead RCB to glory as the Bangalore team finished fifth in the table. Kohli's historic season came three years later, in 2016 when the talented batter shattered and made many records in the tournament. Kohli hammered 973 runs in 16 matches at an astounding average of 81.08 - the most by any batsman in a single IPL season. Kohli's 973 runs was also the maximum runs aggregated by a batsman in any limited-overs (50-over/T20) tournament.

Kohli also became the only skipper to register 500-plus runs in three IPL seasons: 634 in 2013, 505 in 2015, and 973 in 2016. Before the 2016 edition, Kohli had never scored an IPL hundred, but at the end of the tournament, the Indian cricketer had four IPL centuries in his account. The same season, he led RCB to the final, the team's second, but unfortunately, they ended up losing to Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH).

With 5,426 runs in 178 matches, Kohli is the current leading run-scorer in the IPL, including five centuries and 36 half-centuries. Overall, Kohli is close to 9,000 runs and has more T20 runs than any other Indian batsman. The RCB captain is among the very few players who have played for the same franchise across all the IPL seasons.