‘Brand hai brand!’ – Virat Kohli completes 15 years with Bangalore in Indian T20 League

Star Indian cricketer Virat Kohli has completed 15 years with the Bangalore franchise in the Indian T20 League. He will be seen again in the Bangalore jersey for the upcoming season. Kohli has been a part of the franchise since the inaugural season in 2008.

The 34-year-old is the only player in the tournament’s history to be part of the same franchise for all 15 years. He was picked by Bangalore in the inaugural auction for an amount of INR 20 lakh. Now he is the highest-paid cricketer in the tournament with a salary of INR 17 crore.

Kohli came as a talented promising youngster in the squad and went on to become the leading run-scorer of the tournament throughout the years. He has scored 6,411 runs from 216 matches, with an average of 36.43, striking at the rate of 129.72, with five centuries.

Kohli took over as the skipper of the franchise in the year 2013. Since then, he has led the side into playoffs four times, where Bangalore reached the finals of the 2016 season. Kohli was in a supreme mode in 2016, as he amassed 973 runs to become the highest scorer in an individual season. In that season he scored four centuries and also became the batter to score the most centuries in a season. He was on his way to winning the title for Bangalore with his 54 runs while chasing 209 runs against Hyderabad. However, after he got out, none of the other batters could do something remarkable as Bangalore lost the game by 8 runs and again fell short of the title.

In the next season in 2017, Bangalore couldn’t continue their red-hot form from the last season as they finished last in the points table winning only three games out of 14. In that season, Bangalore were bowled out for 49 runs against Kolkata to register the lowest total in the Indian T20 League history.

Kohli steps down as the skipper before 2022 season

Kohli decided to step down as the captain of the franchise before the 2022 season few days he took the same decision for the Indian T20I team. Faf du Plessis was selected as Virat’s deputy and he took the team to the playoffs. However, Kohli didn’t had a great season with the bat as he scored 341 runs from 16 games with an average of 22.73, scoring only just two half-centuries.

Now that he is back in his red-hot form in white-ball cricket, as he was the highest scorer for India in Asia Cup and the 20-20 World Cup, fans will be expecting him to bring his old touch in the upcoming season as well. Kohli will also be looking to win his first title in the Indian T20 league with the Bangalore franchise.