"He came into the dressing room with confidence and cockiness"- Former India player recalls first impressions of Virat Kohli 

Former India cricketer Irfan Pathan said that batting talisman Virat Kohli had a 'confidence and cockiness' about him when he entered the national team dressing room in 2008. The 40-year-old said that Kohli looked like he owned the dressing room when he first walked in, in Sri Lanka in August of that year.

Pathan also highlighted how making over 500 runs in the 2011 IPL season for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) proved to be the start of Kohli's prime years, moving forward.

"He won the Under-19 World Cup as a captain in 2008. He came into the dressing room with confidence and cockiness. I saw him very closely in Sri Lanka. He owned the dressing room and it did not feel like he was a youngster. But when his IPL journey began in 2008, he got around 150 runs."

"It was not that special, but by the time the whole cycle of his youth ends in 2012, before that came in the 2011 season where he scored more than 500 runs for RCB for the first time in his IPL career. The peak of his career started from there," Pathan said on his YouTube channel.

Irfan Pathan lauds Virat Kohli's form in white-ball cricket amid decline in Test cricket

Irfan Pathan highlighted how Virat Kohli had regressed as a Test batter between 2020 and 2025 and how the former India all-rounder had been his biggest critic. However, Pathan praised Kohli for his batting in white-ball cricket in the same period and his achievements in coloured clothing in the last year and more.

"The one thing that happened between 2020 and 2024 was that he saw a dip in form in Test cricket. I have myself been his biggest critic in Test cricket, but in white-ball cricket, he never stopped scoring runs. He was always achieving newer feats, even as an experienced player."

"Everyone remembers the 2023 ODI World Cup. He went past Sachin Tendulkar's record for the most number of ODI hundreds. He won the T20 World Cup in 2024, the Champions Trophy went into his cupboard.There was one trophy missing from his experience. That was the IPL trophy for RCB," Pathan said on his YouTube channel.

Virat Kohli retired from Test cricket on May 12, after playing 123 Tests and scoring 9230 runs at an average of 46.85.