It was on August 18, 2008 that a 19-year-old Virat Kohli, fresh off a victory in the Under-19 World Cup of that year, first turned out to play for India. The occasion was the first One-Day International (ODI) against Sri Lanka on the tour of 2008 and Kohli opened the innings along with his Delhi and India teammate Gautam Gambhir. It wasn't the best outing for the teenager as he managed just 12 runs as India were bowled out for a paltry 146 and lost the match, but what began on that day has now blossomed into a career that could well be regarded, by the time it's done, as the greatest in Indian cricket.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) congratulated the Indian skipper on completing 12 years in international cricket and so did Kohli's Indian Premier League (IPL) team Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB).
"On this day in 2008, a young @imVkohli donned the #TeamIndia jersey for the first time and as they say the rest is history. Here's congratulating #TeamIndia Captain on #12YearsOfVirat," BCCI tweeted.
"From an ambitious young cricketer to one of the best batsmen the game has ever seen, it's been one incredible journey!" tweeted RCB.
In the past 12 years, Kohli has crossed several milestones. He was part of India's World Cup-winning team in 2011, the Champions Trophy-winning team in 2013 and the team that climbed to the No.1 spot in the ICC Test Rankings.
Kohli is second on the list of highest scorers for India on ODIs with 11,867 runs, only behind his mentor Sachin Tendulkar's 18,426, and has scored 70 international centuries behind Tendulkar's 100. He is the fastest to reach 10,000 runs ODIs.
Kohli succeeded MS Dhoni as India's Test captain in 2015, and ODI and T20I captain in 2017. He has 7,240 Test runs to his name and holds the record for the most double hundreds (7) among Indian batsmen in Tests.
The Delhi cricketer has played three IPL finals – 2009, 2011 and 2016 – but is yet to win a title with RCB, with whom he has remained since the inception of the league in 2008.
He will look to change that when IPL 2020 gets underway in the UAE from September 19.