Virat Kohli was born on 5 November 1988 in Delhi in a Punjabi family. His father, Prem Kohli, worked as a criminal lawyer and his mother, Saroj Kohli, is a housewife.

He is a right-handed batsman and occasional right-arm medium pace bowler.

He is the current captain of the Indian team in Test cricket and vice-captain in limited overs formats.

In the Indian Premier League , he captains the Royal Challengers Bangalore.

After representing Delhi at various age-group levels and domestic cricket, Kohli captained India Under-19s to victory at the 2008 Under-19 World Cup in Malaysia.

He made his ODI debut for India against Sri Lanka. Initially having played as a reserve batsman in the Indian team, he soon established himself as a regular in the middle-order in ODIs.

He was part of the Indian squad that won the 2011 World Cup. Kohli played his first Test in 2011 against the West Indies at Kingston.

By 2013, he shrugged off the tag of "ODI specialist" with Test hundreds in Australia and South Africa. The same year, he also reached the number one spot in the ICC rankings for ODI batsmen for the first time.

He has also found success in the Twenty20 format, winning the Man of the Tournament at the 2014 ICC World Twenty20 in Bangladesh. Later that year, he became the top-rankedT20I batsman in the ICC rankings.

As of December 2015, Kohli is in a relationship with Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma. The relationship has attracted substantial media attention.