Hyderabad: Veteran Indian cricketer Virat Kohli was honoured as the Pubity Athlete of the Year for 2023, defeating Argentina's World Cup-winning skipper Lionel Messi 78-22 in the final votes cast. The online poll was hosted by Pubity Sports, the subsidiary channel of Pubity between 16 great athletes from almost all sports, including the likes of Virat Kohli and Lionel Messi, Novak Djokovic, Pat Cummins, LeBron James, Erling Haaland, Cristiano Ronaldo and Max Verstappen. All these were pitted against one another in a knockout setup for online voting, where Kohli and Messi came down in the final. However, the 35-year-old cricketer eventually won the polls by 78% of the votes to win the Pubilty Athlete of the year 2023 title.
The former India skipper's 2023 was a year to remember as he broke India's legendary batter Sachin Tendulkar's most runs record in a single edition of the World Cup, scoring 765 runs at an average of 95.62, including three centuries. He even became the second-highest run-getter of the year in ODIs with 1,377 runs.
Messi, on the other hand, won the Ballon d'Or in 2023 for his exploits in 2022. He also won the FIFA World Cup in 2022 in Qatar, winning the Golden Ball while helping his former club Paris-Saint Germain win the 2022-23 Ligue 1 title, registering 41 goals and assists in as many games. The Pubity is an online community, spanning 20 channels across the world. The famous Instagram Page has more than 35 million followers.
Read More
