Virat Kohli tattoos: How India’s cricket stars turn ink into identity

“My body is my journal and my tattoos are my story.” – Johnny Depp.

One of the first things that comes to mind when you think of Virat Kohli is his strokeplay. Then comes the aggression, the animated celebrations and that almost infectious passion for the game.

The runs and records followed soon enough. Kohli became the poster boy of Indian cricket, and for a generation growing up watching him, being like Kohli was the dream.

Many tried to copy his shots in the nets. Some borrowed his aggression and celebrations. Beyond the cricket field, Kohli brought something else to the table: style.

The signature beard. The rockstar hairstyles. The swagger.

Many tried to copy those too. Myself included.

But there was one thing about Kohli that perhaps stood out more than anything else: his tattoos.

Covering both his arms is a collection of tattoos that have become as recognisable as some of his trademark celebrations. You would imagine someone with a larger-than-life personality like Kohli to have gone down the classic rockstar route. Skulls. Bones. Fire. Something loud.

Instead, Kohli’s collection is surprisingly grounded.

There is the God’s-eye tattoo, or the all-seeing eye as Kohli has described it. It symbolises the belief that everything you do is being watched and that someone is always keeping track of your actions.

Then there is the Japanese samurai, a symbol from which Kohli believes he draws strength and values such as loyalty, self-discipline and ethical behaviour.

Kohli’s tattoos have become a part of his identity (Courtesy: Aliens Tattoos)

His ODI and Test cap numbers find space on his left arm, along with the names of his father and mother. A worshipper of Lord Shiva, Kohli also has a tattoo of the deity meditating on Mount Kailash.

There is a monastery image, too, along with Scorpio, Om and tribal tattoos.

And the collection has continued to grow.

Kohli has been adding to his left-arm sleeve, one that was intentionally left incomplete. And there is a rather fitting reason for that.

For Kohli, a tattoo is unlikely to ever be a finished chapter. It remains a work in progress, growing alongside his journey through life. Every major chapter, personal change and significant achievement could bring a new addition, turning the artwork into an evolving reflection of his experiences rather than a permanent reminder of just one moment.

Then came the latest one, which appears to depict ripples spreading across a water surface after a single drop falls into it.

Taken together, Kohli’s tattoos reveal a different side to the man we see charging around on a cricket field. There is calmness. Reflection. Spirituality. A sense of looking inward.

And Kohli is far from alone.

Hardik Pandya got one to celebrate his relationship with girlfriend Mahieka Sharma. Tilak Varma has shown his devotion to Lord Shiva and love for his parents through tattoos depicting their faces on his body. Smriti Mandhana decided to celebrate the Women’s World Cup win with a cute tattoo on her right hand.

The latest star to join the growing list was Arshdeep Singh, who got inked alongside his girlfriend Samreen Kaur.

And the list keeps growing.

Hardik got a special tattoo to celebrate his relationship with Mahieka Sharma (Courtesy: Aliens Tattoos)

Which got me thinking.

What exactly goes into creating a tattoo? Where does the idea begin? How much creativity do the cricketers themselves bring to the table? And, perhaps most importantly, what makes them keep coming back for more?

Luckily enough, the people behind Kohli’s latest tattoos were willing to take us behind the scenes.

Aliens Tattoo CEO Sunny Bhanushali and lead artists Allan Gois and Devendra Palav spoke about the stories behind the ink and what appears to be a growing tattoo revolution in Indian cricket.

VIRAT, THE TATTOO ENTHUSIAST

The conversation wasn’t supposed to be a long one.

It eventually went on for almost an hour.

There were stories about emotions, relationships, spirituality, recovery, creativity and the strange pull of the tattoo chair. But at the centre of it all, there was always going to be one man.

Virat Kohli.

Almost like the centrepiece of a much larger work of art.

Kohli keeps a relatively low profile these days and largely stays away from the glitz and glamour of the media. So what is it actually like working with one of the biggest stars in world cricket?

“It’s always good to work with Virat. We always have fun — me, Deva, and the entire team. It’s never like working with Virat. It’s more like he’s a friend now. Nobody gets access to him. It’s he who decides who can,” said Allan.

Allan has worked closely with Kohli on his latest tattoo and said the Indian star is far more involved in the creative process than one might imagine.

Kohli, according to Allan, doesn’t simply sit back and let the artists do all the thinking. He asks questions. Plenty of them. And occasionally, he challenges them too.

“Virat is a very intelligent guy. He is not just a sportsman, he is a businessman as well. And he takes like collective decisions when it comes to anything he does in his life,” said Allan.

“That is what we feel. He is actively involved throughout the design process. He tries to understand the technical process of tattooing end to end, why we are doing what we are doing, and how we are going to do it.”

“And he basically also challenges your decisions, not just goes with the flow. So he also challenges our decisions, like why this element or why this design, why this angle.”

“So that is the kind of experience that we have had working alongside Virat.”

It perhaps explains why Kohli’s tattoos are so personal.

On the outside, they may appear mellow when compared to the aggression and intensity he brings to the cricket field. But Sunny believes that is exactly where the story lies.

“For you, as an outsider, it’s not bold or the elements are mellow. But for Virat, all the elements are bold because that’s the reflection of himself. So his tattoo is nothing but an expression of the emotions and all the feelings inside of one, right?”

“And whatever he believes in, whatever he feels and whatever his philosophies are about life and his career and everything, the design is reflecting all of that.”

“He is always involved in designing his piece and he is into every bit of it. And a reason for that is because what he is trying to achieve more than the aesthetics of the design is the story of his life, is what he is trying to portray through tattoos,” said Sunny.

And Kohli’s involvement does not stop once he leaves the tattoo studio.

Allan revealed that despite now being based in London, Kohli remains only a message away when it comes to discussing ideas, designs and the next chapter of his sleeve.

“For us working with Virat, it is the opposite time. He lives in London; we are sitting here in India. But anytime we message him, late night, early morning- he will reply. I don’t know how he does that, but he’s actively involved; he’ll ask so many questions. And then we come to a final decision that this is what we want to go with,” said Allan.

MAKING A TATTOO FOR A CRICKETER

So, is designing a tattoo for a cricketer any different from doing one for the rest of us?

Yes and no.

The process itself remains largely the same. But according to Sunny, the conversations can take you down very different paths.

For a cricketer, it usually starts with a basic idea. A name. A milestone. A relationship. A belief. And then the real work begins.

“The process is basically same for everyone. The conversations are different, but the process of designing is the same for every person,” said Sunny.

“It starts with a very basic idea where they know what they want vaguely. Maybe they want to name off their partner or maybe they want to talk about some milestone or there is some base story to it. And from that point in time, we start asking deeper questions.”

“What’s the story behind it? What’s the emotion behind it? Is there any belief system connected to it? There are so many childhood stories that come out, so many emotionally loaded things from their past, from the present come out. People cry, people laugh.”

That is where a tattoo begins to move beyond simply looking good.

Once the stories and emotions are on the table, the artists move to the design process. Options are presented, ideas are discussed and changes are made. The aim is to create something that the person won’t grow tired of looking at years later.

Smriti Mandhana got a special tattoo to celebrate India’s Women’s World Cup win in 2025 (Courtesy: Aliens tattoos)

A tattoo, after all, does not come with an undo button.

“We start with one design, we might present them with maybe two, three, or four options. They might have some time to think over it come back. And then that’s how we develop and we go towards closure.”

“We make sure that the tattoo is not a very transactional item. It has to be a timeless piece for that person. Now for an outsider, writing just a name of a partner or a dog or a pet or making wings and flowers and this and that to signify something, for an outsider it is just an element, surface level element,” said Sunny.

Then comes the part most people dread.

The needle.

Depending on the size and complexity of the artwork, getting a tattoo can mean spending several hours in the chair. For a professional athlete, there is another factor to consider: recovery.

What happens if there is a match in a couple of days?

Tilak Verma pays a special tribute to Lord Shiva and his parents with his tattoos (Courtesy: Aliens Tattoos)

Sunny said the artists offer recommendations and schedules, but elite athletes also know their own bodies and recovery systems remarkably well.

“When they come for a tattoo, we know that they will have their matches and stuff. But then, Hardik and Virat, both are very spontaneous with their decisions.”

“And while we have our recommendations, they know their forte and their healing strength and you know. So, they take a call. So, we don’t have much say in that way, in that sense.”

“So, Virat has got a tattoo couple of days prior to the match and still did great in matches, following matches. Hardik has done the same and he has done really well. We have seen time and again them getting tattoos in the midst of the ongoing series and they do great,” said Sunny.

“Their vitals are different than our regular people. So, when you talk about Virat Kohli and even talk about Hardik Pandya, they are not normal people. Their bodies are different.”

“They have different kind of strength, and they are not like regular people. So, you can’t compare their physical strengths and performance to regular people because they are meant for that. If you talk about Virat, he is a top-10 athlete at the world level. You can’t say that there is no stark difference from a normal person. There is a difference. So, their willingness to heal is very strong.”

“They are on a great diet. They have doctors and people around all the time. They know every bit of it, you know, what recovery is, what healing is. All their life they have spent in doing that. Normal people don’t do that. Normal people next day go to job.”

And sometimes, the process itself can take years.

Kohli’s tattoo collection is perhaps the perfect example.

Allan said the work on the Indian star has been going on for more than three years and the story is still unfolding.

“In Virat’s case, we have been working on his piece for more than 3 years now, and it is still taking shape. It is still, like unfolding basically,” said Allan.

“The right piece is still pending. The left sleeve, we got some time this year. So, we could finish most of the piece, like 90 percent of the piece this time.”

“But the right piece is still pending. So, that is how it is. It takes months, sometimes years to develop the entire piece, depending on how much time the customer has.”

For Kohli, the tattoo is not just a piece of artwork.

It is, quite literally, still a work in progress.

HOW CRICKETERS CHANGED THE WAY INDIA LOOKS AT TATTOOS

There was a time, especially in India, when tattoos came with plenty of stereotypes.

Getting inked wasn’t always seen as something the mainstream would embrace. Tattoos were often linked to rebellion, rough personalities or someone who perhaps had a bit of a mean streak.

Look back at some of India’s biggest cricket stars from an earlier generation and the contrast is striking.

Sachin Tendulkar. Rahul Dravid.

Tattoos simply weren’t a major part of their public identity.

The current generation is different.

Kohli, Hardik and others have made tattoos part of their personalities without it ever taking away from their sporting success. If anything, the artwork has become another way for fans to understand them.

“Tattoos have always existed in Indian culture. Now, it has been modernised, and celebrities have started getting it, like Virat and Hardik. So, for me, I think that tattoos had this negative notion or stereotype or taboo attached because of the people who were getting it,” said Allan.

“People who have achieved something significant in their life started getting tattoos and the tattoos that had actual deep meaning of something they have achieved in their life, that is when the artwork started gaining more attention and importance, is what I feel.”

Devendra believes the evolution has not just been about the people getting tattoos. The perception of tattoo artists has changed too.

“In the olden days, that whatever we used to think about tattoos, the personality and mentality were different. When we used to talk about tattoos as a career point of view, the mentality was different, but eventually, everything kept changing, kept evolving, so the mentality and the aspect of looking at it changed.”

“So, same thing happened with other people’s mentality. Tattoos are not just about style and fashion, it is a reflection of emotions,” said Devendra.

And perhaps that is why so many cricketers keep returning to the chair.

The final question of the conversation was a simple one.

Why come back again and again?

Sunny believes the answer lies in commitment.

The same kind of commitment, perhaps, that these athletes show when they step onto the field.

“I think it is about how committed you are towards that emotion or whatever you believe in. So the people who actually come to get a tattoo, they are committed enough to get that,” said Sunny.

“And they don’t think like it’s going to take three years, five years. It is about that one session.”

“And that is what they will plan. This session will try to complete this part of the piece. And then we move ahead. So there’s no special force, that is trying to help them to sit along. It’s not suffering. This is an experience. It’s a beautiful experience to get a tattoo. You would want to come back and sit on that chair and do it again and again. It’s fun.”

“It’s not physical. It’s emotional. There’s a lot of emotional load on the neurological level. And what tattoo does it, when you get a tattoo of that particular emotion, there is a massive release of energy from the neurological self. And you feel lighter, better, happier. There is an elevated feeling inside of it. And you crave for that feeling again and again.”

“And also it affects your mental state. So there is a scientific psychological term, which is known as identity refreshment. Your identity is elevated every time. But every time you get a tattoo, it heals you a little bit.”

“And once you get a tattoo, your body craves for it. You want to do it again. You wait for that moment that you’re going to sit in that chair and get a tattoo again. You start dreaming about it.”

And maybe that is what makes tattoos such an interesting part of modern cricket.

For fans, they can be another element of a cricketer’s style. Something to admire. Something to copy.

But for the players themselves, the ink appears to mean something far more personal.

A parent. A partner. A childhood memory. A World Cup. A belief. A god. A moment that changed everything.

Or simply a reminder of how far they have come.

Which brings us back to Kohli.

A few years ago, while speaking to National Geographic, the former India captain perhaps summed up the relationship between tattoos and his life better than anyone else could.

“I don’t need to look any further than both my arms to understand where I was and where I’ve come now,” said Kohli.

For a man whose cricketing journey has been documented through runs, records and trophies, perhaps there is another journal sitting in plain sight all along.

It is written across both his arms.

– Ends

Published On:

Sep 13, 2026 10:23 IST