Kohli celebrates new year with Anushka, continues ODI resurgence

Virat Kohli welcomed 2026 with wife Anushka Sharma in a playful masked photo on Instagram. The 35-year-old, in superb ODI form after retiring from T20I and Tests, recently became the fastest to 16,000 List A runs, surpassing Sachin Tendulkar

New Delhi: India’s charismatic batter Virat Kohli stepped into the new year 2026 with his wife and Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma, posting a photo on social media. The former India captain shared a photograph on Instagram featuring the couple wearing masks, with Kohli’s playful Spiderman-style mask adding humour to the frame.

Taking to Instagram, Kohli wrote, “Stepping into 2026 with the light of my life.”

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The post instantly garnered views and was flooded with comments from fans and followers wishing the couple good luck ahead of the new year.

After retiring from T20I and Test cricket, Kohli has been in the best form of his life in ODI cricket. The 35-year-old returned to India’s top domestic one-day tournament for the first time in 15 years and made a strong comeback by scoring 131 and 77 consecutively, showing his desire to play at this level.

Kohli’s recent run of form has been historic as he achieved 16,000 runs in List A cricket, becoming the fastest player to do so and breaking Sachin Tendulkar’s long-standing record. He is scheduled to play against Railways on January 6 at the BCCI’s Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru.

His resurgence in the domestic arena follows his outstanding performance in the ODI series against South Africa, where he scored two centuries and one fifty to lead India to a 2-1 series win.

The Indian team will gather in Vadodara on January 8 to prepare for the upcoming ODI series against New Zealand. The series will begin in Vadodara on January 11, with the second and third matches in Rajkot and Indore on January 14 and 18, respectively. It will be followed by a five-match T20I series from January 21 to 31.