Table of Contents
Virat Kohli meets Ayush Mhatre: The India National Cricket Team are already on the tour of Ireland, as they lost their first T20I 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 runs as Lorcan Tucker’s side created history by beating the reigning world champions.
The Men in Blue, following the T20I series against Ireland, will tour England for a white-ball tour comprising five T20Is followed by three ODIs. Ahead of the ODI series, former India captain Virat Kohli, who has been selected for the ODI series subject to fitness, visited the Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru for a fitness test.
Ayush Mhatre meets Virat Kohli at CoE
U-19 World Cup-winning captain Ayush Mhatre, who is also in Bengaluru doing his rehab after he sustained a hamstring injury during the TATA Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 while batting for Chennai Super Kings (CSK), which ruled him out of the tournament, is now regaining his fitness at the very same place.
View this post on Instagram
Ayush Mhatre met Virat Kohli and had a wonderful conversation with the former India captain. The coincidence is that both have been U-19 World Cup-winning captains: Virat in 2008 and Ayush in 2026. Ayush shared a picture on his Instagram account captioning it "An unforgettable conversation with a legend", with a symbol of a heart in the end.
Ayush Mhatre calls Virat Kohli a 'legend'
The conversation between the two is unknown, but as we assume that many young cricketers look up to Virat Kohli as an idol, and Kohli has always been on the side of the upcoming cricketers and helped them grow with his experience in the game over the years. He always tries to help, as young players have often shared their experiences meeting the greatest ODI batter of all time.
Ayush Mhatre has been known as a huge fan of Rohit Sharma, as he tries to copy the latter’s pull shot, and as both of them share the same dressing room while playing for Mumbai during the Vijay Hazare trophy, and has always looked up to Rohit as a batter and captain over the years.
Virat Kohli and Ayush Mhatre's IPL 2026
Kohli had a stellar IPL 2026 season, as he was the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) leading run scorer in the tournament. The former skipper finished off with 675 runs with an average of 56.25 and a strike rate of 165.84. He was awarded the Player of the Match in the final after scoring 75* runs and helped RCB win their second trophy in consecutive seasons.
Ayush Mhatre was also one of the finest batters for CSK until 6 matches, as he scored 201 runs with 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 also failed to win matches, losing a spot in the playoffs as well for the third consecutive season.
