Virat Kohli has pulled off several 'revenge' celebrations, with a couple of cameos coming up in IPL 2025 too. (BCCI)It was probably the most light-hearted moment involving Kohli mimicking an opponent’s gesture as a comeuppance. We know the backstory: Just after he hit the match-winning shot against Kohli’s RCB in Bangalore, Rahul drew a circle on the ground with his bat, and plonked the wood in the middle to suggest ‘this is my ground’ in a viral moment.
Expectations were high on what Kohli would do at his own home ground in Delhi if he played a knock of substance against Rahul’s Delhi Capitals. As it turned out, he anchored the chase, but got out just before the end. Even as Rahul was standing chatting with his Karnataka team-mates Karun Nair and Devdutt Padikkal at the end of the game, Kohli entered the scene. He mimicked Rahul’s celebration and burst out laughing as he hugged Rahul.
Rahul responded with a smile, “I was just telling him (pointing to Karun) that ‘acha hua out ho gaya!” (It was good that he [Kohli] got out). The implication being that he too expected Kohli to do that celebration during the game itself.
Kohli laughs and in a video put up by Delhi Capitals can be seen saying, “Patha hai meine kya Socha tha? Match khatam karoonga, yun karoonga (gestures the circle) and I shall come and hug you. In logon ko patha nahi na off the field kaise hota hai (I thought I shall finish the game, will do the gesture, and hug you. These guys (fans presumably) don’t know how it is off the field (good relationship). And they all laugh.
That “achha hua out ho gaya” from KL 🤣💙 pic.twitter.com/OGFB4AQ4Lx
— Delhi Capitals (@DelhiCapitals) April 28, 2025
Kohli vs Kesrick Williams
This was Kohli’s way of revenge served cold. Two years after West Indies pacer Kesrick Williams flipped an imaginary notebook and signed as his celebration when he dismissed Kohli in a game in Jamaica in 2017, the two faced off in a game in Nagpur in India. And kohli smashed the bowler around and would mimic Williams’s note-flipping signing gesture.
In an interaction with International Cricket Network 360, Williams relived that moment. “As soon as Mr Virat Kohli walked into bat, he walks straight at me and says, ‘the notebook celebration thing is not going to work here tonight. I’m going to make sure it won’t work’,” he said. “Seriously! the episode is back from 2017. Every ball I bowled he said something but I simply responded, ‘mate, just bat and shut up. Really, you sound like a child.’,” Williams said.
“In the match he beat me really bad, I got confused, because he got into my head honestly and I kept thinking its alright, he got into my head and that’s why he beat me badly.”
Williams would also claim that Kohli even gestured to him his celebration in the flight enroute to Thiruvananthapuram to play the next game.
Kohli vs Maxwell
During the third Test of the fiery 2017 BGT series in Ranchi, Maxwell had mocked Kohli, who had injured his shoulder on the opening day. While Maxwell returned to the field after scoring his maiden Test hundred, he clutched his right shoulder and took a dig.
Kohli repaid the gesture in the second innings after the dismissal of David Warner by gesturing and holding his shoulder, and looking at Australian dressing room.
He even blocked Maxwell on his instagram that the Australian only learnt when he joined RCB and tried to insta-friend Kohli.
” I went and asked him ‘Have you blocked me on Instagram?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah probably. It was when you mocked me during that Test match. I think I got the sh*** and decided to block you. I was like ‘yeah, that’s fair enough’. So yeah, he ended up unblocking me, and we became great friends after that,” Maxwell would say.
Kohli vs Shreyas Iyer
During the game in Bangalore this season, LSG’s Shreyas Iyer was presumably being heckled by the crowd behind him when he was fielding near the boundary. And when he won the game, Iyer turned around, cupped his palm around the ear, as if to say ‘cant hear any noise now that you lost’.
In the next encounter between the two teams, Kohli remained unbeaten to seal a win, turned to Iyer, fielding at midwicket, and pumped his fists furiously. Kohli also was seen explaining that celebration to Shreyas, who didn’t seem too thrilled.
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