5 crucial losses that proved to be turning points in Virat Kohli’s career

#4 vs Mumbai Indians, Champions League T20, 2010

The making of the superstar of the IPL

In the modern era, one is not considered a complete batsman if he does not adapt to all the three formats. With the tight schedule of the cricket calendar, a player hardly gets time to switch off between formats. With the advent of T20s it became pretty much compulsory for batsmen to be able to score quickly and adapt themselves to fit into the T20 setup. And Kohli obliged.

This match, unlike others on the list, was not high profile. Firstly because the Champions League T20 could not gather much attention and secondly because this edition of the tournament did not take place in India.

In a crunch match for both these IPL heavyweights, Mumbai set RCB a par score of 166 to win the contest. The equation, which once read 40 required from 18 balls, was brought down to 13 from the final over by some amazing hitting by Virat as Lasith Malinga got a taste of what Kohli held for him in future.

After dispatching two yorkers of Zaheer Khan to the boundary, Virat needed to score 3 runs from the final ball to secure a win for his side. Alas! It wasn't to be. Just the kind of yorkers that were smashed to the boundary proved to be his undoing this time as RCB lost by two runs.

The young Virat’s 24-ball-47 effort wasn't enough a for a victory but more than enough to break him down. He sat on his haunches and it took long for Dravid to console him off the park.

RCB eventually made the semi-finals where they went down to another IPL mate Chennai Super Kings but the biggest positive for RCB was that they had more than figured out the way forward for the franchise. In the mega-auction that preceded the next season of the IPL, Kohli was RCB’s only retention and the results were there to be seen.

Ever since Kohli has been scoring heftily for RCB and scored an incredible 973 runs in the 2016 edition which included four centuries. In fact, the only feather missing in his ornate cap seems to be the IPL title.

Kohli's success in the T20 format did not just benefit Bangalore, he took batting to another level in T20Is as well. He was consecutively awarded Player of the Tournament in the 2014 and 2016 editions of the ICC T20 World Cup. He is the only player in the world who boasts of a T20I batting average in excess of 50.