Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli welcome baby girl
MUMBAI: Actress Anushka Sharma and cricketer Virat Kohli welcomed a baby girl today. Virat made the announcement on Twitter - mother and baby are both doing well, he wrote and signed off with a request for privacy. Virat tweeted: "We are thrilled to share with you that we have been blessed with a baby girl this afternoon. We thank you all for your love, prayers and good wishes. Anushka and the baby are both healthy and we are feeling beyond blessed to start this new chapter of our lives. We hope that you can respect our privacy at this time."
— Virat Kohli (@imVkohli) January 11, 2021
Anushka and Virat, married since 2017, announced last August that they were expecting a baby. They wrote on their respective social media accounts, "And then we were three! Arriving Jan 2021." Congratulatory messages flooded their posts instantly - many of these were from the couple's celeb friends such as Priyanka Chopra, Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan, Sania Mirza, Kiara Advani, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Taapsee Pannu, Dia Mirza and Parineeti Chopra.
Kohli, the captain of India's cricket team, was granted paternity leave by the Board of Cricket Control in India or BCCI and flew home from Australia towards the end of December after playing the first of a four-match Test series. In his absence, the team is being captained by Ajinkya Rahane.
Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli, both 32, dated for several years before marrying in Italy in 2017. In 2014, Anushka said, "We are not hiding anything. We are two normal young people in a relationship."