"Bhaiya, Virat wala fade ," they would say. (Brother, the Virat fade.)
In the 2018 Test series against England, Kohli walked out at Edgbaston with a brand new, razor-sharp fade. He had failed in 2014, dismissed again and again. But with this new cut—clean, disciplined, almost severe—he looked different. He looked sorted . He scored 149 and 51. After the match, a teammate joked that the pitch wasn't swinging because it was distracted by Virat’s hairline. Kohli smiled, but he didn't disagree. virat kohli haircut
In early 2022, after stepping down as captain, he walked into the gym with a brutal, almost military-grade buzzcut. It was a statement of erasure. He was stripping away the "King Kohli" persona. No product, no parting, no style. Just stubble. "Bhaiya, Virat wala fade ," they would say
The media called it a "crisis cut." But Kohli called it freedom. For six months, he looked like a club cricketer. His form didn't magically return. But quietly, something was rebuilding. The buzzcut was the fallow field before the harvest. Finally, in the 2022 Asia Cup, a new Virat emerged. The hair was back to a moderate length—not the aggressive 2017 fade, not the sad buzzcut. It was a textured crop . Short on the sides, but softer on top. The beard was grey at the edges. He smiled more. After the match, a teammate joked that the
It began, as all great cricketing legends do, not on the pitch, but in a quiet, sun-drenched studio in Bandra, Mumbai. The year was 2017. Virat Kohli, then the undisputed prince of Indian cricket, sat in a barber’s chair. The clippers hummed. When he stood up, the world didn’t just see a new hairstyle; they witnessed a coronation.