Virat Kohli is like Ranveer Singh, says Harbhajan Singh; calls Sachin Tendulkar ‘cricket’s Gabbar Singh’: ‘When he would walk in…’

While Virat Kohli is Indian cricket team's Ranveer Singh while Rohit Sharma is the team's Nirupa Roy due to his forgetful nature, as per former cricketers Harbhajan Singh and S Sreesanth.

3 min readNew DelhiFeb 2, 2026 02:35 PM IST

Virat Kohli's personality is a lot like Ranveer Singh, as per Sreesanth and Harbhajan Singh.

Harbhajan Singh claims Ranveer Singh and Virat Kohli are quite similar in their personalities. (Photo: Instagram/Virat/Ranveer)

Cricket and films are the two most talked about pillars of Indian society, and both have massive fanbases supporting them. They often intertwine as well in the form of cricket franchise ownership, friendship and more serious relationships. Cricketer Virat Kohli and actor Anushka Sharma are arguably the best example of this relationship, as the two married each other in 2017. In a recent interview, Virat’s former teammates Harbhajan Singh and S Sreesanth got to discussing cricket and movies and pointed out the similarities between cricketers and actors.

Harbhajan, who is hosting a cricket show on YouTube with his wife Geeta Basra, invited Sreesanth and his wife Bhuvneshwari Kumari. Geeta and Bhuvneshwari decided to question the men about their teammates. The following segment had the women take names of the Bollywood actors and ask Bhaji and Sree to say the name of the player who shares a similar personality. The first name out of the gate was Ranveer Singh, and after joshing around with each other, they both decided that Virat is the closest to the actor, personality-wise.

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Sreesanth recalled Virat’s early days in the dressing room and said, “When he came during that time, he was always funny. His nickname was Chiku, and I remember Bhaji Pa (Harbhajan) and Yuvi Pa (Yuvraj Singh) used to make him do all sorts of things. He was funny and was always full of energy and life.” The duo then compared Rohit Sharma to actor Nirupa Roy for being forgetful. “You won’t believe it, but Rohit Sharma can forget anything. He’ll forget his kitbag. One or two times is okay, but every time? Once I read in the news that the entire time he reached the airport, but he didn’t have his passport,” said Sree.

Other comparisons included Sreesanth to Nana Patekar, Bhaji to Johny Lever, Mogambo to VVS Laxman, Akshay Kumar to Rahul Dravid, and Yuvraj to Shah Rukh Khan. The Mogambo reference was made because Bhaji claimed that Laxman would get happy about everything and anything. Sree gave an example of Dravid showing up to train before anyone else early in the morning and how that is very much like Akshay, who has a reputation for taking his workouts and schedules seriously. The Shah Rukh and Yuvraj correlation come from the fact that both men are adored by everyone, and that they get a lot of attention wherever they go.

Talking about Sachin Tendulkar, both men quickly compared him to Gabbar Singh, and recalled how everyone would go completely silent around him. Bhaji said, “He used to walk into the dressing room, and everyone would just go silent, But that was out of respect, not fear.” They also mentioned that Zaheer Khan, who used to be called the Greek god back in the day, would also get a lot of attention, like Yuvi. Interestingly, Anushka Sharma acted opposite Ranveer Singh in his debut film, Band Baaja Baarat. The two also worked together in the Maneesh Sharma directorial Ladies vs Ricky Bahl.

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