The Indian selector, Jatin Paranjpe revealed how current Indian skipper, Virat Kohli earned his first bat contract even before getting to play his first Indian Premier League (IPL) match for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). Jatin Paranjape, who was Sports Marketing head of Nike, recalled that he had been scouting young India cricketers ahead of 2008 Under-19 World Cup and was impressed by what he saw of young Kohli.

During a recent chat with Gaurav Kapur on his Youtube show 22 Yarns, Paranjpe said, “Through my coaches’ network, I started going to watch a lot of matches, and Virat was one of them in an India U-19 camp ahead of the 2008 U-19 World Cup. I saw that he had something in his eyes – a hunger, confidence.”

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Virat Kohli had signed his first contract with Nike at the age of 19 ahead of leading the Indian team to win the U-19 World Cup in 2008.

Recalling the same, Jatin Paranjpe said, “Virat Kohli was my very first signing, and the next day, I signed Tanmay Srivastav.”

Paranjpe revealed at that time, Nike had only S Sreesanth as the only cricketer with them, which was an extremely dangerous situation. He said that at the time, the concept of a Nike bat wasn’t discussed, as the sportswear company was focussing more on footwear, shoes, etc.

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Explaining the same, Paranjpe said, “Nike had only Sreesanth as a cricket athlete and at that time, there wasn’t the thought for a Nike bat,” he said. “It was just footwear, shoes, etc. And we had a roster that had only S Sreesanth written on it. That is an extremely dangerous situation to be in and that scared the daylights out of me.”