“Cricket is a religion in India” -This is possibly the most cliched quote in India but is very true at the same time for it rightly reflects the unified sentiments of this highly diversified nation. From schools and offices from kids to adults, cricket is one force that binds us all. From Gully Cricket to IPL to World Cup Tournament, we live cricket. Oh! and we love cricket. We respect our cricketers so much that we deify them, and make them our gods. What started with Gavaskar and Kapil turned into a saga of god-devotee love with Sachin that further continued with Dhoni. And now we have Kohli. King Kohli as they say.
In the first ODI against New Zealand, Virat Kohli scored his 31st ODI century taking him past Ricky Ponting. Among players who have scored more than 2,000 runs no one comes even close to Kohli’s average. In the last 50 ODIs, Kohli has scored ten centuries and twelve half-centuries. What makes his efficiency even more special is that few of those 100’s have come under the burden of captaincy. Kohli averages 55.55 and is nearly past the 9,000 run mark. No other batsman in the world is currently close to him. He is
already in the league of legends of the game such as Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky
Ponting. And he has a long career ahead, considering his excellent fitness and a form that never weans.
So It shouldn’t surprise us that Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli beat the Argentinean and the Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi in the Forbes list of most valuable brands among athletes.
The list is led by 19-time world champion and the Swiss maestro Roger Federer.
The sports stars above Virat Kohli are American basketball legend LeBron James,
eight time Olympic gold medallist Usain Bolt, 2016’s Ballon d’Or winner Cristiano
Ronaldo and American golfers Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods. Irish golfer Rory McIlroy is at the eighth spot, Lionel Messi is at ninth spot and Golden State warriors star Steph Curry finishes at tenth spot on the list.
The brand value list takes into account an athlete’s earnings{excluding salary and bonus from their sport and all investment income} and subtracts the average income of the top 10 athletes in the same sport.
Federer leads the pack with $37.2 million and Kohli’s brand value is sitting pretty at $14.5
million. Messi’s brand value is currently estimated to be $13.5 million. Messi’s brand value dropped a notch since last year and it made way for Virat Kohli’s first appearance on the Coveted Forbes list.
Kohli is currently World’s Highest Paid Cricketer and he has gone from strength-to-strength in his rise both on and off the cricket field. His brand value increased by leaps and bounds after he took over the captaincy from Mahendra Singh Dhoni in all formats and successfully guided the team to the top spot in the ICC Test Rankings. He recently went past Ricky Ponting to bring up his 31st century and currently has the second highest number of centuries under his belt. Off the field, his decision to end his deal with Pepsi since he doesn’t consume the product makes him immensely marketable and a responsible star.
Kohli however is not the first Indian or the first cricketer in the Forbes list. His predecessor Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Sachin Tendulkar have blessed the list in its earlier editions.