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Star Indian cricketer Virat Kohli is celebrating his 35th birthday today (November 5). The right-handed batter is doing what he loves the most, that is representing India in a cricket match on the grand stage of the ODI World Cup. He is currently playing against South Africa at the Eden Gardens.
Virat Kohli is the most popular cricketer on social media, with more than 250 million Instagram followers. A lot of fans have a good idea of Kohli's personal life as well, but in this listicle, we will look at five things which most of the cricket fans may still not know about Kohli.
#1 Virat Kohli dismissed Kane Williamson in U-19 World Cup 2008 semifinals
New Zealand and India have had an exciting rivalry at ICC events in the recent past. Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson have played a big role in this rivalry. Both batters are also a part of the Fab 4 group.
Interestingly, Kohli and Williamson faced off in the U-19 World Cup 2008 semifinals. They were the captains of their respective teams. Williamson opened the batting for New Zealand U-19s and scored 37 runs off 80 balls before Kohli dismissed him stumped out. Kohli even dismissed Fraser Colson and finished with figures of 2/27 in seven overs.
#2 Virat Kohli has never scored a 100 against a non-Test playing nation
Quite a few fans might have noticed that some top batters have unbelievable records against the lower-ranked teams and non-Test playing nations. However, Kohli, who has 78 international hundreds to his name, has never touched the triple-figure mark while playing against an associate team.
Kohli has played against Nepal, Namibia, Netherlands, UAE, Hong Kong, and Scotland. He either did not bat, lost his wicket early or remained not out after getting off to a good start.
#3 Virat Kohli's 4 IPL wickets
Kohli does not bowl too often in the IPL nowadays, but there was a time when he bowled part-time medium pace for the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) initially in his career. Kohli even picked up four wickets.
His first two wickets came against the Deccan Chargers in 2008, where he dismissed Chamara Silva and Dwarka Ravi Teja. In 2011, he took the wickets of Brendon McCullum and Wriddhiman Saha, while playing against Kochi Tuskers Kerala and Chennai Super Kings, respectively.
#4 Kohli did not win a single Man of the Match award in his first 3 IPL seasons
Kohli is the all-time highest run-scorer in IPL now. He has smashed seven centuries in the league and won 16 Man of the Match awards. Surprisingly, the star Indian batter never won a Man of the Match award in the first three seasons of his IPL career.
He scored 718 runs in the three seasons, including two half-centuries. Although Kohli did not win any Man of the Match award, RCB backed him and retained him ahead of the 2011 IPL Mega Auction.
#5 Kohli's 1st IPL salary
It is quite well-known that the Royal Challengers Bangalore retained Kohli for ₹15 crore before the IPL 2022 Mega Auction. But not all fans would know about Kohli's first salary because he was picked in the U-19 Draft.
According to Moneyball by InsideSport, Kohli only earned ₹12 lakh per season from 2008 to 2010. His salary increased to ₹8.28 crore when RCB retained him before the 2011 Mega Auction and then it went up to ₹12.5 crore in 2014 and ₹17 crore in 2018.
