An afternoon ebbed away at Bengaluru’s National Cricket Academy and this was the year 2008. With the Under-19 World Cup in Malaysia just round the corner, the Indian junior squad was busy training. As evening seeped in while traffic piled up on roads around the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium and birds roosted inside the adjacent Cubbon Park, a young lad strode out. He was the team’s skipper and answered to the name Virat Kohli.
“Virat,” a call went and he immediately said: “Yes.” The youngster was asked about the team’s prospects, the mind space, his form and he had a precise answer to all the queries. This was an old head on young shoulders. India went on to win that tournament and the Kohli saga had got its ‘Act 1, Scene 1’ opening. A few years later, after he transitioned to the senior Indian squad with mixed results before finding his mojo, a few cricket writers ran into him at the Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) team hotel.
The conversation was revealing. This was a cricketer, still in his early days at the highest level and here he was holding a mirror to himself. Kohli spoke about losing his way, taking things for granted, presuming that the step up from Under-19 to State and National cricket would be smooth and how one day he understood that the only way to stay afloat was to work hard. He watched his diet, exercised hard, trained at the nets with maniacal obsession and the turnaround was done. The candour was remarkable. Again, an old head on young shoulders.
Cut to the present, he now has an old head on old shoulders though he is only 34 but for athletes, their sporting age hastens towards retirement once the 30-mark is crossed. This is King Kohli, the master of pursuits with the broad bat essaying glorious drives and rapier pulls. He is again an athletic fielder, full of energy and one who draws television cameras like a magnet. He is also a former captain, be it India or RCB, with terrific results from the former and middling outcomes from the latter.
Deadly duo: Kohli and Rahul recorded India’s highest fourth wicket partnership in ODI World Cup history. | Photo Credit: B. JOTHI RAMALINGAM
Kohli has seen much ever since he first turned up for India in 2008. He could be Moses parting the seas in the manner he caned Lasith Malinga once in Australia. He could be James Anderson’s bunny in 2014 and then turn it around in 2018 and dominate the seamer. This is a blue-chip cricketer, ever willing to learn, but with the stardust of celebrityhood lighting him up, the sunglasses and fat earphones were on and an invisible mask slipped across his visage. But out on the field, he was always sunshine and sweat, the jive and the dive, the anger and the joy, the crazy laughter and the odd Punjabi expletive.
Kohli, the blend of eternal wise head and forever young heart, is slipping into mentor mode within the changeroom. His 85 in India’s ODI World Cup opener against Australia at Chennai’s M.A. Chidambaram Stadium was a masterpiece. It was a knock worth more than a 100 just like G.R. Viswanath’s unbeaten 97 at the same venue against the then mighty West Indies in 1975.
India was down to two for three in two overs and Kohli, elder brother and a naughty one at that, whispered to K.L. Rahul: “Play it like a Test match.” The target wasn’t extreme, just 200, but the pressure was immense.
Yet Kohli found a way. Like all the greats who have adorned cricket, Kohli’s initial progress on the scoresheet had the nimble ways of a pickpocket. He ran hard, stole his singles, found his spots, and even before the Aussies realised what was happening, he was already in his 20s.
Stepping in at number three, standing at first slip or in the deep, Kohli will be a vital cog as India persists with its World Cup campaign. | Photo Credit: B. JOTHI RAMALINGAM
His calmness seeped into a twitchy Rahul too. The two shared a glorious 165-run fourth-wicket partnership that eventually sealed India’s six-wicket victory. Rahul remained unbeaten on 97 much like his Karnataka senior Viswanath in the past. His knock was stellar but its genesis lay in the ‘Kohli Effect’. Later when Kohli got to Delhi, his hometown, he did an encore with a polished unbeaten 55 in a winning cause against Afghanistan after skipper Rohit Sharma had lit up the skies with a 131.
What Kohli is doing now is what the great Sachin Tendulkar did during his career’s second-half. At one point in time, Tendulkar was either the one-man army or the lone boy on a burning deck but once new allies cropped up ranging from Sourav Ganguly to M.S. Dhoni, he seamlessly did the patriarch act.
Kohli is in that zone. Perhaps he is at peace now after moving on from his captaincy angst and the three seasons when the runs proved to be a mirage and his Test average dipped below 50, before he exploded with a stunning knock against Pakistan in the 2022 ICC T20 World Cup game at Melbourne. A 53-ball 82 was a distillation of Kohli at his best. It had shades of Tendulkar, Viv Richards, Dhoni and Javed Miandad, but most importantly it had the Kohli touch as its defining signature.
It is a fact that he is stretched thin, playing across formats, and also featuring in the IPL. But his fitness is still top-drawer and he has found a second-wind that should bolster the Men in Blue or India in whites. And just like how the Indian team rallied around Tendulkar in the 2011 World Cup which culminated in Dhoni’s winning six in the final in Mumbai, perhaps the current lot have found their common spark within the intensity that Kohli always exudes.
Stepping in at number three, standing at first slip or in the deep, Kohli will be a vital cog as India persists with its World Cup campaign. Great athletes always bequeath hope; Kohli has that special ability. In the days ahead, his legacy will take further shape and within that rests a nation’s billion dreams.
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