India, Dec. 25 -- Virat Kohli's Vijay Hazare Trophy return, his first game in almost 15 years, wasn't just a ceremonial cameo. It was a full-volume ODI-style hundred that dragged Delhi over the line, and as a side effect, reignited the World Cup Kohli conversation.

Playing at the BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru, Kohli cracked 131 off 101 balls as Delhi chased down 299 to beat Andhra. The knocks also took him past 16,000 List A runs, making him only the second Indian, after Sachin Tendulkar, to reach that mark. It landed soon after he struck back-to-back ODI centuries for India against South Africa in early December, a run that has made his form impossible to file under "nice but..."

His childhood coach, Rajkumar Sharma, told ANI ...