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Virat Kohli met Ayush Mhatre: The India national cricket team is already on the tour of Ireland, as it lost its first T20 match against the Ireland national cricket team by 34 runs on Friday. Shreyas Iyer and his boys failed to chase down the target of 183 as Lorcan Tucker’s side created history by defeating the defending world champions.
The Men in Blue, after the T20I series against Ireland, will visit England for a white-ball tour which will include five T20Is followed by three ODIs. Ahead of the ODI series, former India captain Virat Kohli, who has been selected for the ODI series on fitness grounds, visited the Center of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru for a fitness test.
Ayush Mhatre meets Virat Kohli at CoE
Under-19 World Cup-winning captain Ayush Mhatre, who is undergoing his rehabilitation in Bengaluru after suffering a hamstring injury while batting for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) during the Tata Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026, which ruled him out of the tournament, is now regaining his fitness at the same venue.
Ayush Mhatre met Virat Kohli and had a great chat with the former India captain. Coincidentally, both have been Under-19 World Cup-winning captains: Virat in 2008 and Ayush in 2026. Aayush shared a picture on his Instagram account and captioned it “An unforgettable conversation with a legend”, with a heart symbol at the end.
Ayush Mhatre called Virat Kohli a ‘legend’
The interaction between the two is unknown, but as we believe many young cricketers look up to Virat Kohli as a role model, and Kohli has always been supportive of budding cricketers and has helped them grow with his experience in the game over the years. He always tries to help, as young players have often met and shared their experiences with the greatest ODI batsman of all time.
Ayush Mhatre is known to be a big fan of Rohit Sharma, as he tries to imitate Rohit Sharma’s pull shot, and they both shared the same dressing room while playing for Mumbai during the Vijay Hazare Trophy, and over the years he has always looked up to Rohit as a batsman and captain.
Virat Kohli and Ayush Mhatre’s IPL 2026
Kohli had a fantastic IPL 2026 season, as he was the leading run scorer for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the tournament. The former captain scored 675 runs at an average of 56.25 and a strike rate of 165.84. He was awarded the Player of the Match award after scoring 75* in the final and helping RCB win their second trophy in consecutive seasons.
Ayush Mhatre was also one of the best batsmen for CSK in the 6 matches, scoring 201 runs at an average of 33.50 and a strike rate of 177.87. However, after suffering an injury, he could not contribute further in the tournament and thus CSK failed to win the match, also losing a spot in the playoffs for the third consecutive season.
