Virat Kohli
Virat Kohli profile with Test retirement (12 May 2025), T20I completion after the 2024 World Cup final and a dated 2027 ODI World Cup aim; no current XI is implied.
Virat Kohli is an India top-order batter whose right-hand batting and high-volume international career have made him a central figure in modern cricket. He is also a long-serving Royal Challengers Bengaluru IPL player; scorecards should identify him primarily as a batter, not an all-rounder.
Read FairPlay’s India–West Indies fixture context for dated match guidance; country association here does not place Virat Kohli in that XI.
At a glance
- Provider ID
- 46
- Role
- Top-order Batter
- Born
- 5 November 1988
- Gender
- Male
- Batting
- Right-hand bat
- Bowling
- Right-arm medium
Playing identity
The ICC lists Kohli’s role as Batter, with a right-handed batting style and right-arm-medium bowling style. ESPNcricinfo is more specific, describing him as an India top-order batter. That distinction matters: his principal contribution is run-scoring in the top order, while the bowling classification describes an occasional secondary skill rather than an all-rounder’s role.
His publicly documented birth date is 5 November 1988. The date is given by both ESPNcricinfo and Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s official player profile.
Career context
Kohli’s senior international story follows an early milestone: the ICC records that he led India to the Under-19 World Cup title in 2008. The same ICC retrospective identifies India’s 2011 World Cup triumph, the 2013 Champions Trophy and India’s 2018–19 Test-series win in Australia among his career highlights, while also describing his leadership across formats.
A defining late T20I moment came in the 2024 World Cup final. ICC records that Kohli made 76 from 59 balls, won Player of the Match and helped India beat South Africa by seven runs; the tournament account describes this as his final T20I for India. These are completed historical milestones, not predictions about future teams or selections.
Kohli announced his Test retirement on 12 May 2025 and his T20I career ended after India’s 2024 World Cup win; an ICC report dated 26 September 2026 says he is aiming for the 2027 ODI World Cup. That is a dated ambition, not confirmation of selection or a playing XI.
IPL and RCB context
Kohli’s franchise identity is unusually continuous. RCB’s official profile says he made his IPL debut for the club in the league’s first match on 18 April 2008 and identifies him as a batter. ESPNcricinfo describes him as the only IPL player to have appeared in every season for one team, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and notes that he was retained after joining soon after India’s 2008 Under-19 title.
That continuity helps readers interpret an RCB scorecard: Kohli’s club affiliation is not a short-term assignment or a future-fixture assumption, but a documented part of his career history.
What a scorecard reader should understand
Read Kohli’s line primarily as a top-order batting entry: right-hand bat, with the expected value coming from occupying a major batting position and converting time at the crease into runs. The separate right-arm-medium label should not be read as evidence that he is a regular bowling option or a statistical all-rounder.
A player profile also is not a current-XI announcement. Match scorecards, not future-looking fixture pages or profile metadata, establish whether he actually played a particular game. This profile therefore records documented role and career context without making a selection claim or presenting live statistics.
A profile records source-backed identity and role context. It does not place this player in an XI or replace an official team announcement.