India star batter Virat Kohli celebrated his 34th birthday on November 5th with teammates in Australia. The right-hand batter has already achieved legendary status in the game with his hardwork and immense talent. While many attest Kohli’s success to his tough grind after coming into the team, an older video from his early days suggests otherwise.
A clip of a news report from 2007 that is going increasingly viral on social media proves that Virat Kohli was hyper-focused from an early age itself. The NDTV video clip covers the news of a young cricketer who had turned up for a Ranji match just a few hours after his father’s death. The name of the player was Virat Kohli.
The clip starts off with the anchor talking about the “extraordinary example set by a teenager.” A reporter then takes over and talks about how 18-year-old Virat Kohli made 90 runs and helped his Delhi team draw a Ranji match against Karnataka.
Here’s the video:
Rare footage- 2007 news report
A boy called Virat Kohli Delhi batted at the Kotla hours after tragically losing his father, Delhi drew the match, he got a 50, needless to say the man went on to become the most loved cricketer in Indian history.#HappyBirthdayViratKohli pic.twitter.com/nUSK5tDumS
— (?) (@ffsvirat) November 4, 2022
“DDCA President Arun Jaitley was among several people who turned up at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi just to meet Virat Kohli. Delhi may have drawn the match but there was no doubt this teenager was the Man of the Match for coming into bat just hours after his father died,” said the reporter.
“Jyada baat nahi ho rahi thi hmlogon ke beech, kyunki wo jab boundaries bhi maar raha tha jyada baat nahi kar raha tha. Thora chup tha wo. I think usko bahut jyada feel hua hai. Apne dad se bahut jyada close tha wo,” one of Kohli’s teamamtes then appears on camera to speak about Kohli’s innings.
Virat Kohli’s elder brother showed support for the star batter and said, “The elders in the family said he is not supposed to go like this. But we took this decision and told him if you are required there you should go there.”
In a heart-to-heart conversation on Graham Bensinger’s talk show, Kohli remembered the difficult time and said, “While my teammates were consoling me in the dressing room I got overwhelmed by the emotion and broke down. Now I feel like it was the most impactful thing to have happened in my life. I came back from the game for the last rites and promised my brother that I will play for India. My father was keen that I play for India and that was when everything in life became second priority. Cricket became the first priority.”
Here’s how fans reacted to Virat Kohli’s unrivalled focus:
King for a reason ??
— Antony Devassy (@AntonyDevassy2) November 4, 2022
Boy turned to legend that day ?#HappyBirthdayViratKohli #KingKohliBirthdayCDP
— Yogesh Kulkarni (@ysk632) November 4, 2022
And from that day…journey of a Goat ? begins
— AnuRAG's_foxbideee ?? (@AnuragGoon) November 4, 2022
