After Personal Tragedy, The Boy Was "Ready To Go Out And Bat": Punit Bisht Recalls Emotional Stand With 17-Year-Old Virat Kohli In Ranji Trophy Match

When Punit Bisht entered the dressing room on the third day of Delhi's Ranji Trophy match against Karnataka back in 2006, there was deafening silence all round and sitting in a corner was a 17-year-old Virat Kohli, eyes all welled up. Bisht, then all of 19, was taken aback by the sight. The look on Kohli's face was enough to tell him that India's future captain, who was still a boy at that time, was trying to battle a storm inside. Kohli had just lost his father Prem, a lawyer, who suffered a brain stroke just a few hours back in the middle of the night.

Kohli and Bisht were not out the other evening. But life had turned upside down for young Kohli.

"To this day I wonder, how in the world did he muster the courage to drop in at the ground. We were all numb at his tragedy and here the boy was standing in the dressing room and ready to go out and bat," Bisht, once Delhi's premier wicketkeeper, who now plays as a professional for Meghalaya, remembers everything as if it was yesterday.

Ahead of Kohli's 100th Test, Bisht agreed to take a trip down memory lane to the winter of the 2006 Ranji Trophy, when India's domestic cricket fraternity took note of a resolute teenager called Virat Kohli.

"Mind it, his father's last rites hadn't been performed and he had just come because he didn't want his team to lose a batter as we were not in a great position," Bisht tried to remember the events of the following morning.

It's nearly 16 years to that day and Punit can vividly remember how senior players, including skipper Mithun Manhas and coach Chetan Chauhan had told Virat to go home.

"Chetan sir, if memory doesn't serve me wrong, was our coach that season. Both Chetan sir and Mithun bhai told Virat to go home as they were not sure