It has been 16 years since Virat Kohli made his debut in international cricket and in this time, he has established himself as one of the all-time greats of the sport. Such has been his achievements that players who were senior to him in the early years of his career have paid tribute to him whenever he broke a major batting record in recent years.

An example of this could be seen with former wicketkeeper-batter Dinesh Karthik's post for Kohli on the occasion of the 16th anniversary of his international debut. Karthik addresses Kohli as “skipper” in the post. “Happy to have played with you Skipper. 16 years and the fire still burns bright,” said Karthik in his post on X.

Karthik himself had made his debut in September 2004 and was a T20 World Cup winner by the time Kohli made his international debut. He, however, played a number of matches under Kohli's captaincy at Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Karthik also played seven T20Is, 25 ODIs and two Test matches under Kohli's captaincy for India.

Kohli's international debut came in an ODI against Sri Lanka on August 18, 2008 in Dambulla. He then made his T20I debut on June 12, 2010 against Zimbabwe in Harare and his first Test match was against the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica in June 20.

Virat Kohli's absence from the Duleep Trophy

Kohli had won the 2011 World Cup but he ended up missing out on big titles throughout his time as India captain between 2014 and 2021. His drought of big titles only ended this year when India dramatically won the 2024 T20 World Cup under Rohit Sharma's captaincy. He played three ODIs against Sri Lanka since then and it was speculated that he would make a surprise appearance in the Duleep Trophy.

However, his and Rohit's absence from the team rosters for the domestic tournament raised a few eyebrows. Batting great Sunil Gavaskar raised concern over Rohit and Kohli's absence from the Duleep Trophy squads by pointing out that they will play in the Bangladesh Test series without much match practice.

“The selectors have not picked the skipper Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli for the Duleep Trophy so they will most likely go into the Bangladesh Test series without much match practice,” Gavaskar wrote in his column for the Mid-Day.

Gavaskar asserted that when a player hit their mid-thirties, it becomes difficult for them to maintain high standards as their muscle memory starts getting weak and the only way to counter that is playing regular cricket.

“While it’s understandable that somebody like Jasprit Bumrah with his delicate back needs to be handled with care, the batters could have done with some batting time out in the middle. Once a player hits the mid-thirties in any sport, then regular competition will help him maintain the high standards he has set. When there’s a longish gap then the muscle memory weakens somewhat and to get back to the high standards from earlier is not easy,” he added.

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