‘Bahubali ka 500va game hai, dekhna to padega’ – Fans celebrate as Virat Kohli plays his 500th game at international level

Former India skipper Virat Kohli is playing his 500th international game for India against the West Indies. He made his international debut in 2008 on India’s tour of Sri Lanka. After the Test series, Virender Sehwag got injured and Kohli was given the opportunity to play for India. Dilip Vengsarkar, who was pressured to get S. Badrinath at the time by the then-Indian Cricket Board treasurer, N Srinivasan.

“I knew that they wanted to keep S Badrinath in the team for he was a Chennai Super Kings player. If Kohli was included, Badrinath had to be dropped. N Srinivasan was the board treasurer around that time. He was upset about Badrinath being dropped because he was their player.

“I felt it was the right time to include Kohli in the squad. Though the other four selectors backed my decision, Gary Kirsten and MS Dhoni opposed it as they had not seen much of Kohli. I told them I had seen him play and we have to take him in the team.”

Virat Kohli hasn’t looked back since then

Meanwhile, the former India skipper has played 110 Tests, 274 ODIs, and 115 T20Is. In the Tests and ODI format, he will play more games in the future. However, his shorter format career might have come to a close alongside Rohit Sharma.

Meanwhile, the former has amassed 8555 runs averaging 48.88, due to the failures with the bat in the last few seasons. In the 50-over format, Kohli has 12898 runs and is only 102 runs away from 13000 runs. He is expected to get these runs in the upcoming ODI series against the Maroon Brigade.

Talking about this captaincy, he led the team in 68 Tests, 95 ODIs, and 50 T20Is. His last T20I game as India’s skipper was the team’s last Super 12 game against Namibia. Before the tournament, he had already announced him stepping down from T20I captaincy. The 34-year-old was removed as captain in ODI and after India lost the Test series in South Africa early last year, he stepped down.

Meanwhile, he is currently playing in the ongoing second Test against the West Indies in Trinidad. The home team has won the toss and elected to bowl first. However, India has reached 66/0 in just 15 overs at the time of writing.

This is how Twitter reacted

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