Virat Kohli, and the biggest missed opportunity in IPL history

When Virat Kohli walks out of the away team dressing room in the pavilion that bears his name at Delhi's Arun Jaitley Stadium on Sunday, it will be tempting to wonder what might have been. As the IPL turns 18, Kohli remains the only player to have represented the same franchise in every single season - but it is not the team based in his hometown.

It remains the biggest missed opportunity in IPL history. In February 2008, two months before the league's launch, Delhi Daredevils (as they were then known) were lining up local players for their first squad. "In the mandatory under-22 category, we have identified Virat Kohli, Pradeep Sangwan and Tanmay Srivastava," TA Sekhar, their head of cricket operations, said at the time.

The move made perfect sense: Kohli was the India Under-19 captain, born and raised in Delhi, and had already represented the state team in the Ranji Trophy and in white-ball cricket. And yet, one month later, Kohli was signed by Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) for the inaugural IPL season. He has never left, and has declared that he never will.

The chain of events started with a frenzied backdrop as the league hurried towards its launch. "Everything was done with an unhealthy rush," recalls Charu Sharma, who was appointed chief executive of RCB by owner Vijay Mallya in early 2008. "The juggernaut started in late 2007… To get a league of this magnitude up and running in three-and-a-half months was just ridiculous."

Five 'icon' players were signed before the initial auction in mid-February, after which teams began to approach unsigned players directly. Franchises were told to sign a minimum of four Under-22 players, and a minimum of four from their local 'catchment area', prompting a race for the best young talent - including India's Under-19s.

Sharma reached out to Karnataka's Manish Pandey, who fit both criteria for RCB, and asked him to commit to the franchise in writing. "It wasn't a contract, just a two-liner to say, 'It's OK by me' because we wanted to make it legitimate,'" Sharma says. "Manish said, 'Thank you so much, I'm very happy,' but a day or so later, I still hadn't heard from him. I said, 'What's going on?'"

Pandey was with India's squad at the 2008 Under-19 World Cup in Malaysia, and agents had caught wind of an opportunity. "He told me that agents had landed from India and were running around the hotel, promising people all sorts of things," Sharma explains. "The boys were being pestered by these agents saying, 'Sign with me, I'll get you a better deal.' It was quite disturbing."

Sharma escalated the matter to Mallya and his fellow CEOs at other franchises. The BCCI soon issued a diktat that, for the duration of the World Cup, the Under-19 players were strictly off-limits. In the meantime, a new system was proposed: they would be selected via a draft at a second, smaller player auction in mid-March, with each team picking up two players.

The mechanism was straightforward: each team would have two picks in a double-draft, with the first team drawn at random picking first and 16th, the second team picking second and 15th, and so on. Salaries were capped at US$30,000 for the Under-19s - or $50,000 for those who, like Kohli, had already played for their state teams in the Ranji Trophy.

"Lo and behold, the first name to come out of the bag was Delhi Daredevils," Sharma says. "There was a collective groan, with everyone thinking, 'OK, Kohli is gone.' He was captain of the team, the best player, and he was from Delhi. And to everyone's surprise, they got into a huddle, and after a few moments, they said, 'We'll take the left-arm seamer: Pradeep Sangwan.'"

The decision had cricketing logic: the Daredevils squad was already stacked with batting. In the first auction, they had signed Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, AB de Villiers, Dinesh Karthik, Tillakaratne Dilshan and Manoj Tiwary; in the interim, they had recruited Shikhar Dhawan and Mithun Manhas among their 'catchment' players.

Sangwan, another Delhi boy, was considered a star in the making. "He was touted as one of the next big things for India," recalls Abhinav Mukund, who was part of the India Under-19 World Cup squad. "India was going through a left-arm pace obsession at that point with Ashish Nehra, Zaheer Khan and Irfan Pathan. He bowled really well throughout that tournament, and had some pace too."

Sehwag, the Daredevils 'icon' player, was an advocate for Sangwan's selection. They both grew up in the same western suburb, Najafgarh, and Sehwag had played a role in Sangwan's call-up to Delhi's state teams in 2007. Sekhar, the franchise's head of cricket operations, had also played a prominent role in his development, working with him at the MRF Academy.

When RCB had the second pick, they had no hesitation at all. "We took about a quarter of a quarter of a quarter-second, and said, 'Virat Kohli, thank you,'" Sharma says, laughing. "I don't think anybody knew that he would become a big global superstar, but he was certainly showing all the signs of being the best Under-19 player in India."

Even as he was fast-tracked into India's national set-up, Kohli was not an immediate success at RCB. Across the first three IPL seasons, he averaged 21.75 and scored only two half-centuries, primarily batting at No. 5 or 6; it came as something of a surprise when he was the franchise's only retention ahead of the 2011 mega-auction. But the fact remains that no other team since has ever had the opportunity to sign Kohli; it is unlikely they ever will.

"I've been approached many times to come into the auction," he told an RCB podcast in 2022. "[But] what this franchise has given me in terms of opportunity in the first three years, and believed in me, that is the most special thing." Kohli has been retained for 17 consecutive seasons, and declared when quitting the captaincy in 2021 that he would be an RCB player "until my retirement".

Sangwan, meanwhile, started well at Delhi: in 2009, he took 15 wickets as the Daredevils finished top of the table in South Africa. But as Kohli soared, he never kicked on as intended: he struggled to get a game when he joined Kolkata Knight Riders, and served an 18-month ban in 2013-14 after testing positive for a banned steroid. Now 34, he has not played a professional game in 15 months.

Kohli's standing in Delhi is as strong as ever, no matter his association with a rival IPL franchise: when he made an improbable return to their Ranji Trophy side in January, crowds estimated at more than 10,000 came to watch. Sunday will be his first RCB game in the city since 2023, with both teams chasing a win which will boost their chances of a top-two finish.

But in that regard, at least, Sangwan has the upper hand. For all that Delhi's decision to sign him ahead of Kohli is remembered as the IPL's greatest recruitment blunder, Sangwan has been part of two title-winning squads: at KKR in 2012, and with Gujarat Titans a decade later. Kohli, RCB and DC are all still on the hunt for their first IPL trophy.