Match or marketing – where is Virat Kohli’s attention? Questions raised by viral video in Birmingham ODI

A video of Virat Kohli has created a sensationImage Credit source: Getty Images

Team India finally got its first win on the England tour. In the first match of the ODI series, the Indian team defeated England by 6 wickets. With this series, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma also returned to the field. However, both could not make any major contribution with their bat. The bat did not move but during this time Virat Kohli did something which caught everyone’s attention and some questions also started being raised. The question is whether Virat Kohli was busy marketing his athletics brand during the match?

In the first match of the ODI series played in Birmingham, Team India fielded first. while fielding Virat Kohli A video went viral on social media. Then suddenly as soon as the broadcaster’s camera focused on Kohli and he started appearing on the screen, the Indian star started tying his shoelaces. Kohli re-tied the shoe laces of both his feet.

Was Kohli promoting shoes?

Now all this is a normal process and players are often seen tying laces during the match. But the most important thing here was that Kohli was seen deliberately tightening the laces on the other foot also and during this his shoes were clearly visible. These shoes were of Kohli’s own brand, which he had launched a few days ago. The focus of the camera also went on Kohli’s shoes and this video went viral.

Virat Kohli intentionally started untying and retying his shoelaces on the field to promote his One8 shoe brand 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/2YXpfVrwzi

— Incognito Cricket (@Incognitocric) July 15, 2026

Focus on match or marketing?

This raised questions whether Kohli was doing this intentionally to market his new brand? Did they know that they were being shown on the screen? Or was it just a coincidence that Kohli was tightening his shoelaces at that very moment? Whatever the case, this video of Kohli went viral. While some social media users were calling it a marketing technique of the Indian cricketer, some even said that Kohli is more focused on marketing than the match.

Sumit Sundriyal

Presently I am working as Assistant News Editor (Sports) in TV9 Hindi (Sports 9). Reaching here started from 2009, when I took admission in Mass Media Honors Course (2009-12) at Jamia Millia Islamia. Then in 2013, he completed Post-Graduation Diploma in Hindi Journalism from Indian Institute of Mass Communication. It was from here in 2013 that he entered professional journalism for the first time and first made a place in News 18 India TV channel. Before taking entry in digital journalism, he spent about 6 years in the TV industry, where he worked on the assignment desk. While at the assignment desk, gathering information is the most important task and it is the responsibility to check every aspect of that news and take it forward. Did the same thing while working at News 18 India. After this, the fascination with sports and sports news turned towards digital journalism and a new journey began. It started during IPL 2019, when Quint joined Hindi. After writing sports news with Quint for a year, he established a relationship with TV9 Hindi to achieve a new position in this work. For the last 3 years, I have been bringing every small, big, serious and funny sports news to you here and am constantly trying to present it in a better way.

Read More