August 18, 2008, may have seemed like an ordinary day for Virat Kohli, but it marked the beginning of a new chapter in Indian cricket. At just 19 years old, having already led India to an Under-19 World Cup win, the young Delhi batsman made his ODI debut under MS Dhoni’s captaincy against Sri Lanka. Opening the innings with Gautam Gambhir, Kohli scored 12 runs before being trapped LBW by Nuwan Kulasekara, making his debut less than memorable. India lost the match by 8 wickets, but that day signaled the start of "King Kohli’s" remarkable journey. A fifty in his debut series, a first international century in Kolkata in 2009, and then a flurry of records soon turned him from a budding cricketer into a national hero.

Kohli holds the record for the most double centuries (7) as a Test captain, is the fastest to 10,000 ODI runs, the first Indian to score 10,000 runs in T20 cricket, and the only cricketer to win the Sir Garfield Sobers Award twice. Across 550 international matches, he has scored 27,599 runs with 82 centuries and 143 fifties. In ODIs alone, he has 14,181 runs from 302 matches.

Today, Kohli has retired from T20Is and Tests but continues his glorious run in ODIs. What looked like an ordinary debut 17 years ago is now remembered across the world as the first step in the rise of "King Kohli."