20 October 2010: The day Virat Kohli fell in love with Vizag

It was the year 2010, India was playing against Australia at the ACA-VDCA Stadium in Vizag. Virat Kohli, who was all of 21 years old, with 8 fifties, 2 hundreds and over 1,000 runs in the internationals. Virat had just hit his fifty and the love story with Vizag started to unravel. 

This fifty from Virat came at a time when he had been missing out on a couple of hundreds already by then. He was just proving his position in the Indian team and had been revered as an ideal replacement for Rahul Dravid in the One Day side. Apart from the existing pressure to perform, Virat was also suffering physically with cramps. 

The Indian team, in the absence of seasoned top-order players, had to chase a daunting 290 runs. While Shikhar Dhawan accounted for a duck on his debut, his opening partner Murali Vijay also couldn’t amount to much. As everything seemed to be falling apart, the onus was taken over by a young Virat Kohli who was playing his first game in Vizag. Slamming a well-compiled 118 to entertain the local crowd, Kohli stood out as the centrepiece of India’s chase as the hosts won the game by 5 wickets.

Virat’s cramps nor the absence of the team’s top-order belittled him. His staggering 118 against Australia in Vizag, set him in the making of one of the finest batsmen ever produced by the Indian team. Virat surpassed his earlier highest of 107 against Sri Lanka and made his first-ever century. 

Since then, two venues stand out when it comes to the King’s ‘happy hunting grounds’. While the Adelaide Oval in Australia comes as a no-brainer, thanks to his exceptional record at the venue, the other one is the ACA-VDCA Stadium in Vizag. The heartening fact was revealed by the man himself after India’s thumping Test victory against England in Vizag in 2016. Calling Vizag “lucky” for him, Virat Kohli said that the ground remains a special one for him. He further added that the ground gives him a feeling similar to the one at Adelaide Oval.

This legendary cricketer was also amongst the first ones from the cricket fraternity to extend condolences to the families of all those people who lost their lives in a major gas leak mishap that took place in a chemical plant in Vizag. 

The last time Virat Kohli was in Vizag was when the Men in Blue clashed swords with West Indies in an ODI in December 2019. 

Over the years, the bond Vizag and Virat Kohli share has only grown stronger.