Do we like Virat Kohli?
Our score: 7 out of 10. No harmful words of his own turned up and there is real charity work, against a restaurant-policy row and a record of on-field flare-ups.
Kohli is the run machine of Indian cricket, and at this stage of a long career he's still chasing the 2027 ODI World Cup. In a May 2026 podcast he said “Obviously I'm doing all this to play the 2027 WC.” He added that he's not there to keep proving himself, so he's still driven and a bit prickly about being doubted.
The freshest stoush is a claim, not a finding. In October 2026 Dinesh Sharma, known as Falahari Maharaj, alleged that ₹5 crore was spent to get Kohli to Premanand Maharaj's ashram. The report says it hasn't been independently verified and no payment record has emerged. Kohli's spokesperson called it “completely false, baseless and factually incorrect” and said he visits out of personal faith. Faith alone is no mark against anyone here.
On the field the temper is the pattern. After the Melbourne Test in December 2024 the ICC fined him 20 per cent of his match fee and added a demerit point over his clash with Sam Konstas. He admitted the offence and accepted the sanction. In May 2026 he walked past Travis Head without a handshake after Sunrisers beat RCB by 55 runs. Head shrugged it off, saying “I don't think there's anything to patch over.”
The harm check is short. Nothing turned up of him attacking LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or science in his own words, and no pattern of working with people who do. The one mark is from 2021, when the group Yes, We Exist alleged his One8 Commune chain turned away gay men at its Pune outlet. The chain said it welcomes everyone and defended its stag-entry rule as common across the industry. The report carries no comment from Kohli himself.
The good stuff is real. The Virat Kohli Foundation works with groups like Smile Foundation on children's education and health, and backs young athletes with scholarships. In 2016 it partnered with a foundation to support a Pune old age home. Reports say he and Anushka Sharma gave to COVID relief too, though no figures were given.
So where does that leave us? He's a fierce competitor who wears his heart on his sleeve, sometimes to his cost, and a decent bloke off the pitch as far as the record shows. The restaurant row is worth knowing about and he never addressed it publicly in what we read. It's a mark, but it isn't a pattern of harm.