Billions of Indians erupted in joy as the men in blue registered a historic World Cup win on Saturday, June 29. Team India’s T20 World Cup victory came after an 11-year long wait, made sweeter by the fact that they went through the series of matches this time, undefeated. The nail-biting match ended with Suryakumar Yadav’s stupendous catch spelling victory for all Indians glued to their screens. The match, which was quite the ordeal to sit through considering South Africa’s equally formidable performance in the initial overs, was a bittersweet play for Virat Kohli as the former team captain officially announced his retirement from T20I in tow with now-captain Rohit Sharma.
Actor and wife to Kohli, Anushka Sharma, opted to skip the stadium and stay at home with their kids, Vamika and Akaay instead. But as tradition goes, the massive moment had to be celebrated by Virat in real-time with his family. In a move that surprised nobody, a tearful and overwhelmed Virat video called his family of three back at home to share the moment.
Virat could be seen blowing kisses and making funny faces also managing to get a few words in despite the understandable commotion at the Barbados stadium.
This brief but heartening moment inadvertently reminds us of the all the times Virat has unabashedly indulged in some innocent PDA while still on the field.
Not too long back, on the evening of March 25 this year, Virat led the Royal Challengers Bengaluru to victory in their match against Punjab Kings during the Indian Premiere League. A beaming Virat was quick to get a hold of his phone and get on an animated video call with wife Anushka. He proceeded to make a few funny faces leading the internet to believe he must be conversing with his children — a routine of sorts for the family now.
Last year, in May 2023, Virat once again achieved a mean feat by scoring a century for RCB in their IPL match against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Glimpses of the same garnered quite the reaction from cricket fans across social media platforms with many noting what a thorough family man the ace cricketer is. Even non-cricket fans were bowled over by Virat’s devotion to Anushka. On such comment on X read, “I didn’t watch the match, but this is so sweet and cute. Virushka is goals!”.
While these video calls count for Anushka and Virat’s long-distance PDA, the two have also given shutterbugs multiple swoon-worthy moments on occasions when the actor has opted to be present in-person for the matches. For instance, Anushka marked her presence at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru as RCB took on the Gujarat Titans during this year’s IPL. A keynote sixer hit by Virat left Anushka as wide-eyed as those watching the match, making for an affable visual.
Virat too, kept circling back to where Anushka was seated having gestural conversations with her in gaps. Needless to say, this banter clearly won the internet.
Whenever Anushka makes her way to the stadium, fans appear to be watching her expressions and gestures as closely as they are watching the match. IPL 2020 for instance gave fans multiple such moments. Be it Virat asking Anushka if she has eaten via gestures or a heavily pregnant Anushka blowing flying kisses to Virat on the field, there is no dearth of cute moments to recount between the two.
Even further back in 2019, Anushka took the victory lap with Virat after the Indian team won the Border-Gavaskar Trophy under his captaincy.
The actor has also never shied away from expressing how truly impressed she continues to be with Virat’s talent and prowess in cricket. One such instance was from the 2018 IPL series when Virat’s moves on the field left Anushka awe-struck, just like the rest of the stadium.
While Virat has announced his retirement from T20I cricket, he will continue to play for India across the Test cricket and ODI cricket formats.
