There is cricket before Virat Kohli and cricket after him.
Not in the sense that he invented the game or changed its rules. In the sense that he changed what was considered possible within it. What a batter could demand of himself physically. What fitness standards professional cricketers should meet. What hunger looks like when it is genuine rather than performed. What it means to want to win so badly that the wanting itself becomes visible from the stands.
He arrived in Indian cricket as a teenager from Delhi with a technique that needed work and a competitive fire that needed no development whatsoever. He left the Indian captaincy as the most successful Test captain in India’s history. He accumulated centuries at a rate that placed him in direct conversation with Sachin Tendulkar’s all-time records. He built a personal brand that made him the most commercially valuable cricketer on earth.
And he did all of it while being one of the most scrutinized, most discussed, most polarizing public figures in a country where cricket is not just sport. It is culture. It is identity. It is the thing that stops a billion people simultaneously.
This is the complete story. His biography, his age, his records across all formats, his net worth, and the story of his relationship with Anushka Sharma, one of the most famous couples in Indian public life. If you have been searching for accurate, comprehensive information on Virat Kohli in 2026, this is the most detailed resource available.
Virat Kohli Quick Facts at a Glance
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Virat Kohli |
| Date of Birth | November 5, 1988 |
| Age (2026) | 37 years old |
| Birthplace | Delhi, India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Height | 5 ft 9 in (175 cm) |
| Batting Style | Right-handed |
| Bowling Style | Right-arm medium (occasional) |
| Role | Batter |
| IPL Team | Royal Challengers Bengaluru |
| Test debut | June 2011 vs West Indies |
| ODI debut | August 2008 vs Sri Lanka |
| T20I debut | June 2010 vs Zimbabwe |
| Wife | Anushka Sharma (married December 2017) |
| Children | 2 (Vamika, born 2021; Akaay, born 2024) |
| Estimated Net Worth (2026) | ₹1,000 crore to ₹1,200 crore (approx. $120 million to $145 million USD) |
Virat Kohli Early Life and Background
Virat Kohli was born on November 5, 1988, in Delhi, India. He grew up in the Uttam Nagar neighborhood of West Delhi, a densely populated, working-class area of the capital. His father, Prem Kohli, was a criminal lawyer. His mother, Saroj Kohli, managed the household. He has an older brother, Vikas, and an older sister, Bhavna.
The family was middle-class in the specific Delhi sense. Not wealthy. Not struggling. Living in a city apartment with the modest comforts and real constraints of a professional family in urban India. Cricket was not a family tradition in the Kohli household in the way it is in some cricket families. But the city of Delhi has a cricket culture and infrastructure that channeled Virat toward the sport early.
He began playing cricket at the age of three, according to family accounts. By the time he was nine, it was clear to his father and to coaches in Delhi’s cricket network that something exceptional was developing.
His father enrolled him in the West Delhi Cricket Academy at age nine, under the coaching of Rajkumar Sharma, who would become one of the most important figures in Kohli’s development and who remains associated with him to this day. Rajkumar Sharma recognized the talent immediately and also recognized the temperament. The young Virat Kohli did not just want to bat. He wanted to be the best.
He attended Vishal Bharati Public School in Delhi and was known to his teachers and classmates as someone for whom cricket was not an interest. It was an obsession.
The night that defines his story:
On December 18, 2006, Virat Kohli’s father Prem Kohli suffered a stroke and died. Virat was 18 years old. He was playing a Ranji Trophy match for Delhi against Karnataka at the time.
He batted on the following morning after learning of his father’s death overnight. He scored 90 runs. After his dismissal, he went home for his father’s funeral.
That innings, in that circumstance, is the single most revealing moment in understanding who Virat Kohli is as a competitor and as a person. The grief was real. The commitment to completing what he had started was equally real. The two things coexisted in a way that most people, encountering something similar, could not have managed.
He has spoken about his father in interviews across his career with a consistency that reflects genuine, sustained loss. Prem Kohli died before seeing what his son became. That absence is part of Virat Kohli’s story in ways that go beyond cricket.
Virat Kohli Career Timeline
Early Career and IPL Debut (2008 to 2011)
Virat Kohli made his ODI debut on August 18, 2008, against Sri Lanka in Dambulla. He was 19 years old. The debut was solid without being spectacular. He made 12 runs. Nobody watching that day would have been certain they were watching the beginning of one of cricket’s greatest careers.
He had already been part of the 2008 ICC Under-19 World Cup winning squad, captaining India to the title. His leadership in that tournament, the tactical intelligence he showed alongside his batting ability, gave early indication of the captaincy future that was ahead of him.
The Indian Premier League had launched in 2008. Kohli was bought by the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the inaugural IPL auction. That association, between Virat Kohli and RCB, would become one of the longest-running and most talked-about player-franchise relationships in IPL history. He is still there in 2026. The title that has eluded them through multiple seasons remains the defining unfinished business of his IPL career.
His early international career was a development phase. He was learning the demands of international cricket. Making mistakes. Adapting. The talent was visible. The consistency came later.
His Test debut came in June 2011 against the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica. He was 22 years old. The debut was modest. He scored 4 and 15.
What followed across the next decade was one of the greatest individual batting careers in the history of the sport.
The Emergence: 2011 to 2013
The period from 2011 to 2013 was when Virat Kohli stopped being a promising young talent and started being a match-winner.
The 2011 ODI series in the West Indies:
He scored centuries in consecutive ODIs against the West Indies in 2011, demonstrating the ability to build and convert in ways that separate top-order batters from truly elite ones.
The CB Series in Australia (2012):
Australia is the crucible that tests Indian batters most severely. The pace, the bounce, the hostile crowd environments, and the specific demands of playing against Australian bowlers in Australian conditions reveal technical and psychological qualities that subcontinental conditions cannot fully expose.
Kohli’s performances in Australia in early 2012 were the moment the global cricket community fully understood what India had. He scored 300+ runs in the CB Series including a match-winning century that announced him to Australian audiences in the most emphatic way possible.
From that point, the conversation about Virat Kohli shifted from promising to exceptional.
The Hobart ODI (2012):
His 133 not out against Sri Lanka in Hobart, chasing a target under pressure, was described by commentators and analysts as one of the finest ODI innings seen in Australia. It demonstrated specifically what would become his most celebrated quality. The ability to chase. To build under pressure. To get better as the requirement became more demanding.
The Run Machine: 2013 to 2018
The five years from 2013 to 2018 represent the sustained peak of Virat Kohli’s batting career. The statistics from this period are extraordinary not just in terms of totals but in terms of the consistency, the conditions covered, and the quality of opposition against which the runs were scored.
Test cricket transformation:
His early Test career was not without struggles. He had a difficult tour of England in 2014 where he was exposed by lateral movement from James Anderson, scoring only 134 runs across 10 innings. The exposure was real and public.
What he did with that exposure defines him. He worked on his technique. He adjusted his trigger movements. He changed his initial setup to better handle the movement. When England toured India in 2016, he was a different technical proposition. He scored 655 runs in the series at an average of 109.16, one of the most dominant series performances by any batter in home Test cricket in recent memory. [Source: ESPN Cricinfo]
The response to the 2014 England failure is the clearest single example of what separates Kohli from merely very good batters. He identified a weakness. He fixed it. He then dominated the same conditions that had exposed him.
The ODI run machine:
His ODI record during this period became the most discussed in the format. His ability to chase targets specifically produced numbers that challenged comparison with any batter in ODI history.
He scored ODI centuries at a rate that placed him on a trajectory to challenge Sachin Tendulkar’s all-time record of 49 ODI centuries. The specific quality of those centuries, many of them scored in successful chases under pressure, gave them a weight beyond the statistical.
The Test captaincy:
Kohli was appointed Test captain of India in 2014 following MS Dhoni’s retirement from the longest format. What he did with that captaincy over the following seven years is one of the most significant leadership achievements in Indian cricket history.
Under his Test captaincy:
- India reached the number one Test ranking in the world
- India won Test series in Australia (2018-19), becoming the first Indian team to win a Test series in Australia
- India maintained a dominant home record across multiple series
- He developed a team culture around fitness, aggression, and result-oriented cricket that transformed how India played Test cricket
[Source: ICC Test rankings historical data and Cricket Australia records]
The 2018-19 Australia series:
India’s Test series win in Australia under Kohli’s captaincy was historic. Australia had not lost a home Test series to India before. The team Kohli built and led to that victory, using pace bowling weapons like Jasprit Bumrah in a way India had not previously had the resources to deploy, was genuinely different from previous Indian Test touring sides. More complete. More capable of winning in difficult conditions.
The Hundred Centuries Chase: Records and the Tendulkar Comparison
The inevitable and entirely understandable comparison of Virat Kohli with Sachin Tendulkar dominated Indian cricket discourse across the second decade of his career.
Tendulkar’s records, particularly his 100 international centuries (51 in Tests, 49 in ODIs), were considered by many to be essentially unreachable. They were accumulated across a 24-year career of extraordinary consistency. To approach them required not just exceptional talent but extraordinary longevity, exceptional fitness, and the specific capacity to keep producing centuries when the game’s demands on batters were changing constantly.
Kohli approached those records.
His century count across formats:
| Format | Centuries (through 2025) |
|---|---|
| Tests | 30 |
| ODIs | 51 |
| T20Is | 1 |
| Total | 82+ |
[Source: ICC official records and ESPN Cricinfo]
His 51 ODI centuries surpassed Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 49 ODI centuries, making him the highest century-scorer in ODI history. That record belongs to him. It is one of the most significant individual batting records in cricket.
[Source: ICC official records]
The moment the 50th ODI century arrived, in the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup, was one of the most emotionally charged moments in recent Indian cricket. The record had been anticipated, discussed, and analyzed for years. When it happened, at the World Cup, in India, the reaction reflected how much the chase had meant to an entire cricket-following nation.
ICC Cricket World Cup 2023: The Tournament of His Life
The 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup, hosted in India, was the tournament where Virat Kohli produced arguably the greatest sustained individual batting performance in World Cup history.
India were unbeaten through the entire tournament until the final. Kohli was their most consistent and destructive batter.
His 2023 World Cup statistics:
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Matches | 11 |
| Runs | 765 |
| Average | 95.62 |
| Centuries | 3 |
| Half-centuries | 6 |
| Highest Score | 117 |
[Source: ICC official World Cup records]
765 runs at an average of 95.62 in a single World Cup tournament. It was the highest individual run tally in a single ODI World Cup in history, surpassing Sachin Tendulkar’s 673 runs in the 2003 World Cup. [Source: ICC official records]
He scored his 50th ODI century during the tournament, the record-breaking moment that completed one of cricket’s great individual milestone chases.
India reached the final against Australia at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. In front of over 90,000 people, with a nation watching, they lost. Australia batted second and chased down India’s total.
The loss was devastating in the specific way that World Cup final losses are. Kohli had given everything the tournament had to offer individually. The team result did not match the individual contribution.
He was named Player of the Tournament. It was the correct decision. It was also, in the context of the final result, bittersweet in ways that required no elaboration.
T20 World Cup 2024: The Title He Needed
The 2024 ICC T20 World Cup, co-hosted by the West Indies and the United States, was the tournament that completed the collection Virat Kohli had been building across his career.
India, under Rohit Sharma’s captaincy with Kohli as the senior batter, went through the tournament unbeaten. In the final against South Africa in Barbados, the match went to a wire that required the full resources of both players and nerves to navigate.
The final innings:
India set a competitive total. South Africa chased it down to the final over, needing a specific number of runs with wickets in hand. India held on. Won. The T20 World Cup was theirs for the first time since 2007.
Kohli’s contribution in the final was his most important innings of the tournament. When India’s middle order wobbled, he held the innings together, scoring 76 runs that proved to be the difference between a competitive and a below-par total.
[Source: ICC official T20 World Cup records]
Following the World Cup victory, Virat Kohli announced his retirement from T20 International cricket, ending that chapter of his career on the highest possible note. The timing was perfect. He had nothing left to prove in the format. He left with a World Cup winner’s medal.
It was, by common agreement, exactly the right decision at exactly the right time.
Test Retirement (2024) and ODI Status in 2026
Virat Kohli retired from Test cricket in 2024, following Rohit Sharma’s earlier departure from the format. The decision marked the end of an era in Indian Test cricket that had been defined by the Kohli captaincy and batting presence for nearly a decade.
His final Test statistics represent one of the great individual records in the format’s history.
As of 2026, Kohli’s ODI career status is the active question in Indian cricket. He has not retired from the 50-over format. The 2027 ICC Cricket World Cup in South Africa sits on the horizon. The question of whether he will be part of India’s squad for that tournament is one of the most actively discussed topics in Indian cricket heading into the preparation phase.
He will be 38 during the 2027 World Cup. The conversation is about current form, physical readiness, and whether his presence in the squad at that stage represents the best option for India or a selection driven by sentiment and past achievement.
It is a conversation that has not yet been resolved. And it will define the final chapter of his international playing career.
Virat Kohli Complete Records
International Career Statistics
| Format | Matches | Innings | Runs | Average | Strike Rate | 100s | 50s | Highest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tests | 113 | 191 | 9,230 | 49.35 | 56.90 | 30 | 31 | 254* |
| ODIs | 295 | 280 | 13,906 | 58.69 | 93.25 | 51 | 72 | 183 |
| T20Is | 125 | 111 | 4,188 | 52.73 | 137.04 | 1 | 38 | 122* |
| Total | 533 | 582 | 27,324+ | 53.25 | 82+ | 141+ |
[Source: ESPN Cricinfo and ICC official statistics]
Landmark Records Held
| Record | Detail |
|---|---|
| Most ODI centuries | 51 (surpassing Sachin Tendulkar’s 49) |
| Highest World Cup run tally | 765 runs, 2023 World Cup |
| Most ODI runs while chasing | Over 8,000 runs in successful chases |
| Fastest to 8,000 / 9,000 / 10,000 / 11,000 / 12,000 ODI runs | All milestones reached faster than any batter in history |
| Most centuries as Test captain | Among highest in history |
| First Indian team to win Test series in Australia | As captain, 2018-19 |
| ICC Cricketer of the Year | Multiple times |
| ICC Test Cricketer of the Year | Multiple times |
| ICC ODI Cricketer of the Year | Multiple times |
[Source: ICC official records and ESPN Cricinfo]
Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma: The Love Story
This is the personal dimension of Virat Kohli’s story that generates more public interest than almost any other aspect of his life. And it deserves genuine, honest attention rather than tabloid treatment.
How They Met
Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma met in 2013 during the filming of a shampoo advertisement in which Kohli was appearing as an endorser and Anushka was the co-star. The meeting was professional. The connection that developed from it was personal.
Anushka Sharma was already one of Bollywood’s most successful and respected actresses at the time they met. Her films had grossed significant box office figures. She was a serious professional in one of India’s most competitive and visible industries. She was not someone who needed the association with a cricketer for commercial or public profile reasons.
Their relationship began quietly and became public gradually. The Indian media and public were fascinated from the beginning. A combination of India’s two most commercially successful entertainment industries, cricket and Bollywood, in a single relationship, was the kind of story that the country’s celebrity culture was designed to amplify.
The Relationship and the Criticism
The public nature of their relationship created specific pressures that most couples do not face.
When Kohli had a poor run of form in 2014, a section of Indian cricket commentary blamed Anushka Sharma’s presence at matches for his poor performances. The criticism directed at her was deeply unfair and widely recognized as such by rational observers. But it happened. It was public. It was painful.
Kohli defended Anushka publicly and directly on multiple occasions during this period, which itself says something about the relationship and about his character. He did not distance himself from her when association with her was being used against him. He stood by her without qualification.
That episode is worth remembering when assessing their relationship because it tested something real and they came through it together.
The Wedding
Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma married on December 11, 2017, in Tuscany, Italy. The wedding was private. The couple deliberately chose a location and format that limited the circus that would inevitably surround any public celebration in India. Intimate. Family and close friends. No media access.
The photographs they released afterward, images of the ceremony and reception against the Tuscany landscape, became some of the most shared images in Indian celebrity history.
The marriage has lasted. In the context of Indian celebrity culture, where both cricket and Bollywood create pressures on relationships that most marriages cannot sustain, their marriage has remained stable, warm, and clearly genuine across nearly a decade.
Children
Vamika Kohli was born on January 11, 2021. Her arrival was announced by both parents on social media with the simplicity and warmth that has characterized how they handle personal milestones publicly. They have been protective of her public exposure and have consistently asked media not to photograph her without consent.
Akaay Kohli was born in February 2024, a second child whose arrival was announced with the same quiet dignity as their first.
Both children are being raised in an environment where both parents are globally famous but where privacy is clearly a deliberate and enforced value.
Anushka Sharma’s Career and Identity
Any honest account of this relationship requires acknowledging who Anushka Sharma is independently of her marriage.
She is one of Bollywood’s most accomplished actresses of her generation. Her films include Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008), Band Baaja Baaraat (2010), PK (2014), NH10 (2015), Sultan (2016), Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (2016), and Zero (2018), among others.
She is also a film producer through her production company Clean Slate Filmz, which has produced critically noted content including the Netflix series Paatal Lok (2020) and the film Bulbbul (2020).
She is not simply Virat Kohli’s wife. She is a successful creative professional in her own right whose career achievements stand independently of her marriage. That distinction matters and is frequently collapsed in media coverage that reduces her to a cricketer’s partner.
She returned to acting following a period focused on family responsibilities and has been selective about projects in ways consistent with someone whose professional standards are genuinely high.
Virat Kohli IPL Career: Royal Challengers Bengaluru
The Virat Kohli-Royal Challengers Bengaluru relationship is one of the most emotionally complex stories in IPL history.
He has been with RCB since the inaugural IPL season in 2008. He captained the franchise from 2013 to 2021. He has scored more runs for RCB than any other player in the franchise’s history. He has led them to three IPL finals.
He has never won the IPL title with them.
IPL career statistics:
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| IPL seasons | 17+ (2008 to 2025) |
| Total runs | 8,000+ |
| Centuries | 8 |
| Half-centuries | 55+ |
| Highest score | 113 |
| Orange Caps | 4 (2011, 2012, 2014, 2016) |
[Source: IPL official statistics]
His 8,000+ IPL runs make him the highest run-scorer in IPL history by a significant margin. His four Orange Caps are more than any other player in the competition’s history.
[Source: IPL official records]
The absence of an IPL title is the single most discussed gap in his cricket achievement portfolio. RCB has come agonizingly close on multiple occasions. The franchise and their enormous fanbase have waited through 17 seasons for the title that would complete the story.
In 2026, that wait continues. But so does Kohli’s commitment to the franchise that has been his IPL home since the beginning.
Virat Kohli Playing Style: What Made Him the Best
The chase master:
His most distinctive quality as a batter is the specific elevation of his performance in chase situations. When India needed to bat second and score a target, particularly in ODIs, Kohli’s average and strike rate both improved relative to his already exceptional general numbers. He scored over 8,000 ODI runs in successful chases, a record that reflects how specifically his competitive psychology suited the pressure of needing to score rather than choosing to.
The fitness standard:
Kohli transformed Indian cricket’s approach to physical fitness. He was not the first fit Indian cricketer. He was the first Indian cricketer whose physical standards became a benchmark that the entire system felt obligated to meet. He built a gym culture in Indian cricket that has produced a generation of athletes who are measurably fitter than their predecessors.
The cover drive:
His cover drive is considered among the most aesthetically pure in modern cricket. It is not simply a scoring shot. It is an event. When Kohli plays the cover drive at full flow, it is one of the reasons people watch cricket in the first place.
The mental game:
He plays cricket with an emotional intensity that has sometimes worked against him in terms of public perception. The send-offs. The celebrations directed at opposition players. The visible, occasionally excessive emotional responses to both success and failure. These are the same qualities that fuel his competitiveness at the highest level. They cannot be separated from the runs they produce.
Areas of honest complexity:
His Test average of 49.35 is exceptional by any conventional measure. It is not the 50+ average that would place him alongside Tendulkar, Bradman, and the absolutely elite group of Test batters. The gap between 49.35 and 50+ is narrow arithmetically and meaningful symbolically in the conversations about his place in cricket history.
His IPL trophy absence, despite the runs and the Orange Caps and the career service to RCB, is the professional achievement gap that defines his franchise career.
Virat Kohli Net Worth in 2026
The Most Commercially Valuable Cricketer in History
Virat Kohli’s net worth in 2026 reflects something that goes beyond cricket. He is not just a great cricketer. He is one of the most commercially successful athletes on earth, in any sport, from any country.
Primary income sources:
BCCI central contract:
As a Grade A+ BCCI contracted player, Kohli’s annual retainer is approximately ₹7 crore, with match fees adding significantly for each Test, ODI, and T20I appearance. Across his career, BCCI contract income represents tens of crores annually. [Source: BCCI contract structure, publicly reported]
IPL salary:
His IPL retention by Royal Challengers Bengaluru has placed him among the highest-paid IPL players in the competition’s history. In the 2025 IPL retention cycle, he was retained at approximately ₹21 crore per season, one of the highest individual retentions in IPL history. [Source: IPL retention records]
Endorsements:
This is the primary driver of Kohli’s extraordinary net worth. His endorsement portfolio is the most extensive and highest-value of any Indian athlete.
Current and recent endorsement partnerships include:
| Brand | Category |
|---|---|
| Puma | Sportswear (primary apparel partner) |
| MRF | Cricket equipment |
| Audi | Automobiles |
| American Tourister | Luggage |
| Myntra | Fashion e-commerce |
| Blue Star | Air conditioning |
| Bold Care | Men’s health |
| Digit Insurance | Financial services |
| Wrogn | Fashion brand (co-owner) |
| One8 Commune | Restaurant chain (co-owner) |
| MPL | Mobile gaming |
His annual endorsement income is estimated at ₹150 crore to ₹200 crore, making him one of the highest-paid athlete endorsers in Asia. [Source: Forbes India Celebrity 100 list and verified sports business reporting]
Business ventures:
Beyond endorsements, Kohli has built genuine business interests:
- Wrogn: A youth fashion brand he co-founded that has become a significant retail presence
- One8 Commune: A restaurant chain with multiple locations across India
- One8 Select: A premium lifestyle brand
- Sport Convo: A sports social media platform investment
- Various real estate investments across Mumbai and Delhi
One8 brand:
His personal brand architecture around the One8 identity (from his jersey number 18) has been built into a commercial platform that licenses across multiple categories including fashion, food and beverage, and lifestyle products.
Estimated Net Worth in 2026
Credible estimates place Virat Kohli’s net worth at between ₹1,000 crore and ₹1,200 crore, approximately $120 million to $145 million USD at current exchange rates.
[Source: Forbes India, Celebrity Net Worth, and verified financial reporting]
This places him among the wealthiest athletes in the world and almost certainly the wealthiest cricketer in history. The wealth is built on:
- Nearly two decades of BCCI central contract income
- IPL earnings across 17+ seasons
- The most extensive and highest-value endorsement portfolio in Indian sports history
- Business ventures that generate revenue independent of his playing career
- Real estate and investment assets accumulated over a long career
His net worth is significantly larger than Rohit Sharma’s despite their comparable playing careers and periods, reflecting the specific scale of his endorsement portfolio which is driven by a brand value that extends beyond cricket into mainstream celebrity.
Virat Kohli Legacy: The Honest Assessment
This is the section that requires the most careful thought. Legacy assessments made while a career is still in its final stages are inherently incomplete. But certain things can be said with confidence.
What is beyond argument:
- He is the greatest ODI batter in history by the metric of centuries. 51 ODI centuries. Nobody else has 50.
- He is one of the three greatest Test batters India has produced alongside Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid
- He is the most successful Test captain in India’s history by results achieved
- He transformed Indian cricket’s fitness culture permanently and measurably
- He built a personal brand that made him the most commercially valuable cricketer in history
- He won every ICC trophy available to him at least once, including the T20 World Cup in 2024
What requires nuance:
- His Test average of 49.35 places him just outside the 50+ club that defines the absolute greatest Test batters historically
- The absence of an ODI World Cup winner’s medal from a playing perspective, having been part of the 2023 finalist squad that lost to Australia, is the ICC trophy gap in his collection
- His captaincy style, while producing results, was occasionally controversial in terms of team selection decisions and public expressions of competitive intensity
The Tendulkar comparison:
The comparison with Sachin Tendulkar will never fully resolve because both careers were extraordinary in different ways. Tendulkar’s longevity (24 years at the top), his 100 international centuries, and his status as the foundational figure of Indian cricket’s commercial era represent achievements that Kohli’s career, however brilliant, has not fully matched in absolute terms.
What Kohli has done is make the comparison genuinely interesting rather than one-sided. That itself is an achievement.
FAQs About Virat Kohli
How old is Virat Kohli in 2026?
Virat Kohli was born on November 5, 1988. He is 37 years old in 2026.
What is Virat Kohli’s net worth in 2026?
Estimates place his net worth between ₹1,000 crore and ₹1,200 crore, approximately $120 million to $145 million USD, making him the wealthiest cricketer in history.
How many ODI centuries has Virat Kohli scored?
He has scored 51 ODI centuries, surpassing Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 49 to become the highest century-scorer in ODI history.
Who is Virat Kohli’s wife?
Virat Kohli is married to Anushka Sharma, one of Bollywood’s most successful actresses and film producers. They married in December 2017 in Tuscany, Italy.
How many children does Virat Kohli have?
He has two children. Vamika Kohli, born January 2021, and Akaay Kohli, born February 2024.
What IPL team does Virat Kohli play for?
He plays for Royal Challengers Bengaluru, the franchise he has been associated with since the inaugural IPL season in 2008.
Has Virat Kohli won the IPL?
No. Despite being the IPL’s all-time leading run-scorer with over 8,000 runs and winning four Orange Caps, Kohli has not won the IPL title with Royal Challengers Bengaluru. It remains the defining unfulfilled ambition of his franchise career.
What is Virat Kohli’s highest Test score?
His highest Test score is 254 not out, scored against South Africa in Pune in 2019. [Source: ESPN Cricinfo]
Did Virat Kohli win the T20 World Cup?
Yes. He was part of India’s 2024 ICC T20 World Cup winning squad, contributing a crucial 76 in the final against South Africa. He subsequently retired from T20 International cricket.
What records does Virat Kohli hold?
His most significant records include the most ODI centuries (51), the highest individual run tally in a single ODI World Cup (765 runs in 2023), the fastest to multiple ODI run milestones, and the most successful Test captaincy record in Indian cricket history.
Where is Virat Kohli from?
He is from Uttam Nagar, a neighborhood in West Delhi, India.
What is Virat Kohli’s highest ODI score?
His highest ODI score is 183, scored against Pakistan in the Asia Cup in 2012. [Source: ESPN Cricinfo]
Conclusion: The Man Who Changed the Standard
Virat Kohli is 37 years old in 2026. He has retired from two of cricket’s three international formats. He has 51 ODI centuries. He has a T20 World Cup winner’s medal. He has a net worth that makes him the wealthiest cricketer in history. He has a marriage and family that have remained stable and genuine through levels of public scrutiny that would have broken most relationships.
And he is still playing. Still producing. Still, in the ODI format, one of the most formidable batting propositions in international cricket.
The 2027 World Cup question will be answered by performance between now and then. If he produces the runs, he goes. If he does not, he will make way with the dignity that the greatest players tend to find when the end arrives.
What is already written is extraordinary.
He came from Uttam Nagar, from a middle-class family in West Delhi, and built himself into something that Indian cricket had not seen before. Not just in the runs. In the standards. The fitness culture. The competitive intensity. The refusal to accept that any record or any achievement was permanently beyond reach.
He went after Tendulkar’s ODI century record for years. People said it was impossible. He got there.
That is the most Virat Kohli sentence it is possible to write. He decided something was achievable. He worked until he achieved it. Then he found the next thing.
In 2026, there is still one more chapter being written. The IPL title with RCB. The 2027 World Cup. The final shape of a career that has already secured its place among the greatest in cricket history.
He is not finished yet. And knowing Virat Kohli, he will not stop until he is.
