"Forever Grateful": Kohli Shares Collage To Celebrate Career's Special Moments On Completing 12 Years In International Cricket

On marking 12 years of completion at the very pinnacle in international cricket, Kohli took to twitter to celebrate the milestone by posting a collage of some special moments of his glittering career and wrote, "Time flies. Forever grateful"

Image: Virat Kohli Twitter Handle

It was 12 years ago on August 18, 2008 when Virat Kohli first doned the Blue Jersey for the very first time and played for India in a one day international against Sri Lanka to mark his international debut. Kohli's very first essay with the willow wasn't impactful and short lived as he departed after scoring just 12 off 22 deliveries in Dambullah. However, the first impression was not his last by any means as the Delhi lad soon grew in stature and began to get recognized as a supremely talented and batsman alongside established batting greats like Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir and Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Post the retirements of Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag after the ICC 2011 World Cup, Kohli began to showcase his real pedigree and skill with the willow and rose to become a run scoring machine for India over the past decade and cement his place as arguably the best limited over batsman over the last decade. On marking 12 years of completion at the very pinnacle in international cricket, Kohli took to twitter to celebrate the milestone by posting a collage of some special moments of his glittering career and wrote, "Time flies. Forever grateful"

Time flies. Forever grateful ???????? pic.twitter.com/vszTMGAPfr

— Virat Kohli (@imVkohli) August 18, 2020

Kohli has become a household name in Indian cricket and arguably the most popular and revered cricketer since Sachin Tendulkar and recently retired Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The batting spearhead has broken numerous records in white ball cricket and is hailed by many experts as one of the best ever batsman in the limited overs format. Under Kohli's captaincy, India has enjoyed a phenomenal run in all formats of the game and has been consistently ranked among the top three teams in the world. His spectacular consistency in all format of the game and special ability chase down herculean targets with relative ease makes him one of the greatest of his generation and of all times. At 31, Kohli is already a living legend with over 20000 international runs and 70 tons has plenty in the tank to add to his ever growing legacy. An astonishing 50-plus average in all forms of the game is a testament to Kohli's sheer consistency with the willow in a decade plus career. In 86 Tests, 248 ODIs and 82 T20Is, he scored a whopping 7,240, 11,867 and 2,794 runs respectively. In 2018, the 'Chase Master' became the quickest batsman to reach the herculean 10,000-run milestone in ODIs, surpassing the record held by 'Master Blaster' Sachin Tendulkar. Kohli has racked up an 70 tons across all formats in international cricket. While he leads the list of ton makers among active batsman by a mile, the Indian is only second behind Sachin Tendulkar in terms of most tons (100) in international cricket.