India
May 2025
Within weeks of each other in 2025, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli — India's two greatest contemporary Test batsmen — announced their retirements from Test cricket, bringing a definitive close to one of international cricket's most celebrated batting partnerships.
Australia vs India
26 December 2024
Teenage debutant Sam Konstas deliberately shoulder-bumped Virat Kohli mid-pitch during his debut innings at the MCG, sparking one of the most talked-about confrontations of modern cricket.
India vs South Africa
2024-06-29
India beat South Africa by 7 runs in a dramatic final in Barbados to win the 2024 T20 World Cup — Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli both announcing retirement from T20 internationals after the victory, ending an era in Indian T20 cricket.
India vs South Africa
29 June 2024
India ended an 11-year ICC trophy drought by defeating South Africa in a breathtaking T20 World Cup Final in Barbados — a victory that sparked celebrations across the subcontinent and prompted the retirement of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Ravindra Jadeja from T20 international cricket.
India vs Australia
7 June 2023
Mitchell Starc's sustained targeting of Virat Kohli's off-stump corridor throughout the WTC Final 2023 at The Oval, exploiting English conditions to dismiss India's talisman and help Australia secure the World Test Championship.
India vs various
2023-11-19
Virat Kohli scored 765 runs in the 2023 World Cup — the highest aggregate in a single World Cup — including 3 centuries (tying the record for most in a single tournament), as India went unbeaten in 10 matches before falling to Australia in the final.
India (internal)
8 December 2021
Virat Kohli was stripped of the ODI captaincy and replaced by Rohit Sharma in a move he claimed was made without prior consultation, exposing rifts within the BCCI and Indian cricket's power structure.
Australia vs India
2020-12-17
Pat Cummins's systematic off-stump line targeting Virat Kohli's drive during the 2020-21 series — dismissing Kohli four times in one series while he averaged just 9.5 — produced the sharpest statistical evidence of one bowler finding and exploiting the world's best batsman.
India (internal)
20 June 2017
Anil Kumble resigned as India head coach citing an 'untenable' relationship with captain Virat Kohli, in one of the most public coach-captain breakdowns in cricket history.
England vs India
9 July 2014
James Anderson and Virat Kohli waged a fierce verbal battle throughout England's 2014 Test series, with Anderson targeting Kohli's technique against the swinging ball. The feud — and Kohli's early struggles — led to a transformation: Kohli scored 186 at Old Trafford to silence his critics and emerge as the player who would dominate world cricket for a decade.
New Zealand vs India
2014-02-06
Trent Boult's left-arm swing against Virat Kohli during New Zealand's 2014 home series — using the angle into the right-hander combined with outswing away from the stumps — produced the blueprint for how swing bowling could repeatedly beat Kohli's outside-edge-happy driving game.
England vs India
2014-07-09
Stuart Broad's specific plan to exploit Virat Kohli's drive outside off stump during India's 2014 England tour — taking his wicket four times in the series through the same channel — contributed to Kohli's disastrous tour (134 runs at 13.4) and a rare period of sustained vulnerability for the world's future number-one batsman.
South Africa vs India
26 December 2013
Dale Steyn bowled a sustained and hostile spell at Virat Kohli during India's tour of South Africa in 2013-14, hitting him multiple times on the body and helmet. Kohli showed growing maturity in absorbing the blows and fighting back. Their exchanges across the series became one of cricket's great fast-bowler-batsman rivalries of the era.
South Africa vs India
2013-12-18
Morne Morkel's height-generated steep bounce during South Africa's 2013 home series created specific problems for Virat Kohli — targeting the rising ball at his gloves from a good length on seaming, bouncy South African pitches — as part of a wider South African plan to contain India's most dangerous batsman.
India vs Australia
2012-02-29
Virat Kohli's 2012 CB Series in Australia announced him to the world as cricket's next great batsman — scoring 230 runs across three successive run-chases, including 133* to chase 316, 75 to chase 270, and 66 to chase 321 — an unprecedented sequence of successful chases.