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Virat is such a symbolic name. It jumpstarts the senses into anticipating an abundance of everything that should matter. This being cricket, it’s also synonymous to his natural state of being—a no-holds barred, in-it-to-win-it attitude coated by a gruff Delhi exterior that has been smoothened around the edges over the years. No one has meant business like Virat Kohli. Only this is far removed from the world where Kohli isn’t the undisputed leader who could make self-righteous choices for others and also live with it.
It’s no secret Kohli wanted to lead India in this World Cup. When he was asked to relinquish the position to Rohit Sharma, Kohli’s win percentage was 70.43, so results surely weren’t the problem. History, thus, will remember that phase as a jarring aberration to the perception Indian cricket has randomly nurtured—that only the very best get to choose their sunset moments. Captain or not, Sachin Tendulkar was always the ultimate sounding board within the team. Kohli couldn’t have been faulted for thinking he too had earned a similar privilege. Forget results, there isn’t a more complete batter in white-ball cricket.
But when the BCCI thought otherwise, Kohli openly took on the board at a tell-all press conference. Things became murky, Kohli burned his bridges and with it the power to shape his journey.
Kohli can still win India the World Cup, albeit without the rank of India captain. It shouldn’t matter though. If there is one thing history has repeatedly taught us is that barring Ricky Ponting—who frankly owned that stupendous 2003 campaign—batters with that aura actually have excelled without the mantle of captaincy. Viv Richards is a glowing example. Also, Tendulkar, who was churning hundreds at will after being done with captaincy.
Kohli could conjure a similar campaign and sign out on a high, something even AB de Villiers—one of his closest mates—is hoping for.
“I think if they win this World Cup, it might not be a bad time to say, ‘Thank you very much. I am maybe just going to play Test cricket for the next few years and a little bit of IPL, enjoy the last bit of my career, have enough family time, and say goodbye to everyone’,” de Villiers has said on his YouTube channel. “He wants to win World Cups for his team. He is a team player, and that’s what you see on the field (with) all those emotions coming out. Especially when he is fielding, there is nothing really to gain for him, but you could see that emotion, which tells you how much it means to him to win.”
Kohli’s best has to come with the bat. And it’s a good thing lows can’t scare him anymore, not after a 1020-day indictment without an international hundred that saw him almost sliding into a statistical abyss. Statistical, because records won’t reflect the application needed to thwart a rampaging South African bowling attack and graft 79 on a seaming Cape Town pitch. Nor will it highlight the 89 that almost gave India an ODI series-equalling win in Sydney. Once he was out of the woods though, Kohli was Kohli again, averaging 52.78 with four hundreds in 19 ODIs.
In many ways, this last year or so has been like a second coming of Kohli.
And that alone piques the interest because the version of Kohli before this had the world at his feet—chopping and changing teams, forcing Anil Kumble to leave, publicly dissecting Cheteshwar Pujara’s Test strike rate and generally putting players on notice. Most of it boiled down to Kohli’s ruthless conviction that he couldn’t be wrong, implying he couldn’t be questioned as well. That could only have stemmed from Kohli’s exceptional clarity and unhindered focus as a batter. So when Kohli hit that seemingly never-ending low, it was bound to take some edge off that intensity.
But Kohli persevered. And when he finally broke through, gave us an insight into what he was telling himself. “When I came back, I wasn’t desperate. I was grateful for what God blessed me (with) before,” said Kohli. “People were talking about me not getting a hundred but I looked at how much he has given me already, so that really calmed me down, that relaxed me.”
He wasn’t wrong. It’s amazing how even a near-three year low couldn’t put a dent on Kohli’s numbers. Still the quickest to complete 13,000 ODI runs, Kohli is now two short of Tendulkar’s world record of 49 ODI centuries. All this in nearly two thirds of the time Tendulkar took (463 matches, compared to Kohli’s 281), with no one scoring more hundreds than Kohli (nine) in chasing 300-plus targets and barely any change in scoring pattern.
Sachin Tendulkar was a month short of 38 during the 2011 World Cup. Kohli will turn 35 on November 5. Notwithstanding his unabated pursuit of excellence in fitness, this looks to be Kohli’s final hurrah. Better, this is an unshackled Kohli in a format where India have won 81% of the times he has scored a hundred. What better opportunity than to remind the world one last time what the name Virat really stands for?
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