Former India captain Virat Kohli’s long awaited Century drought finally came to an end last night when Virat Kohli finally scored his 71st International century, which is also his 1st T20I century after making his T20I debut in 2010 against Zimbabwe.
After leading the India U19 team to the U19 World Cup, it didn’t took long for Virat Kohli to make it to the Indian senior team as well. And now in 2022, Virat Kohli has become one of the greatest of all-time.
Kohli has played over 100 T20I matches in his career and it took him really long to score his first T20I century, but it was the most important one as well as Kohli scored a century after a gap of 2 years.
Today in this article, we take a look at Indian team’s Playing XI from Virat Kohli’s T20I debut and where they are now.
Openers: Murali Vijay and Naman Ojha
The openers for Virat Kohli’s first T20I match against Zimbabwe were Murali Vijay and Naman Ojha. While Murali Vijay was the best option available at that time because of his performance in the IPL, Naman Ojha was included in the team as MS Dhoni was rested for the series. Vijay use to play for Chennai Super Kings while Ojha use to play for Rajasthan Royals in IPL at that time. While Naman Ojha has retired from playing, Murali Vijay is very inactive and is yet to announce his retirement.
Middle-order: Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli
As regular captain MS Dhoni was rested for the series, it was Suresh Raina who led the Indian team in the Zimbabwe series. He use to bat at number 3 then which is currently occupied by Virat Kohli now. Rohit Sharma was part of T20I setup back then as well and was a member of the team that won the T20I World Cup in 2007. Virat Kohli came in at number 5 in that match.
While Suresh Raina has retired for all forms of the game, both Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are still representing the Indian team while the former is the current India captain.
All-rounders: Yusuf Pathan
Yusuf Pathan was the only all-rounder who played in that match. Yusuf Pathan was quite famous for his brilliant power-hitting batting. In fact, it was Yusuf Pathan who was the hero for India in Virat’s debut match. Pathan though has officially retired from all forms of the game a long back.
Bowlers: Ashwin, Ashok Dinda, Pragyan Ojha, Piyush Chawla and Vinay Kumar
Those were the days when a team use to field a total of 5 main bowlers keeping aside the all-rounders. However, among the lot, only Ravichandran Ashwin is currently still a part of the Indian team.
While Pragyan Ojha is currently a member of the IPL Governing Council in the BCCI, Piyush Chawla has started working as a commentator. Meanwhile, Ashok Dinda has retired from all forms of cricket and is currently a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal. Vijay Kumar though has also retired from all forms of the game and is currently working as a scout for the IPL franchise Mumbai Indians.
