3 Instances when other cricketers left Virat Kohli in a shock

Former Indian skipper and senior batter Virat Kohli has a celebrated and illustrious career to his name in international cricket. The veteran right-hander has scored 70 international centuries in a 14-year-long career in all formats of the game. He has registered overall 23,726 runs with his bat in all formats.

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Kohli has fans of his batting not only in India but everywhere in the World where cricket is being watched. He is dominating the circuit of international for the last decade. But there have been also times when some other cricketers left him in shock either with their decisions or their excellent skills on the field.

So, here we’ll have a look at three players who stunned Virat Kohli either on the field of cricket or off the field.

Mohammad Irfan

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The Pakistani team was touring India almost 10 years back in the 2012-13 season. The Punjab-based seven-foot-tall pacer was also a part of the Pakistani team during that series. He went on to scalp three wickets in three One-Day internationals against India. Whereas, he bowled with a very good economy rate during the T20I series on the same tour against India.

Later on, Mohammad Irfan revealed in an interview that Kohli was assured of his speed to be in 130 to 135 kmph. It was completely unexpected for the veteran Indian batter when Irfan bowled around a speed of 150 kmph. He left Kohli in shock by bowling at the speed of 147 kmph.

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Later on, he also talked about that incident in an interview with the Cric Cast later in 2020.

"Virat Kohli told this to me face to face. And when I bowled the next one at 148 kph, he told me that he abused the person next to him asking what sort of medium-fast bowler I was, as I was bowling at 150 kph," said the 40-year-old during the interview.

Rohit Sharma

Virat Kohli was in a talk show Breakfast With Champions with Indian broadcaster Gaurav Kapoor four years back in 2018. The former skipper revealed during the interview that it was literally amazing for many youngsters back in 2006/07 including him to hear about Rohit Sharma. They all were thinking that what was such special in the Mumbai-based batter.

There was a discussion among the Indian cricket fans that an excellent and amazingly talented batter named Rohit Sharma is gradually rising in Indian cricket. Kohli was also keen to know why the people are talking so much about Rohit but not about him.

Virat said, “It left me absolutely stunned when I watched Rohit Sharma bat for India in the ICC T20 World Cup 2007. At that moment, I realized why there was so much hype surrounding his arrival.”

MS Dhoni

Former legendary skipper and great wicketkeeper-batter MS Dhoni decided to hang his boots from Test cricket during the four-match Test series of India against Australians in Australia. Dhoni was leading the Indian team during that series but later on, Virat took the charge from Dhoni from the third Test onwards.

The decision of Dhoni left everyone in shock in the dressing including newly appointed captain Virat Kohli. While speaking on Dhoni’s retirement, Kohli said to reporters, “We had no clue. We never saw it coming, so it was pretty shocking.”

Although, it was not the only time when Dhoni amazed Kohli. Another time, it was during the 2019 ODI World Cup which was also the last tournament for Dhoni in the Indian jersey. India was playing a group stage match against Australia, Dhoni smashed a blistering six against Australia’s ace fast bowler Mitchell Starc.