Kohli in whites

“He (Virat Kohli) was the most Australian non-Australian cricketer”.

These were the words Greg Chappell wrote in his tribute piece, remembering the dominant test career that Virat “the batter” and most notably “the captain” had. Yes, Virat Kohli took retirement from his favourite format exactly a month ago. I was waiting for him to accomplish one of his other dreams, that IPL trophy for RCB! Winning it surely gave a few moments of joy, but those were short-lived. The tragic death of 11 RCB fans surely turned this celebration into a scene of mourning. When will those in executive chairs understand the gravity (More on this might be in future). The vacuum of Virat “the test player” would be immense, and Indian players have some big shoes to fill.

Looking back on his illustrious career, we can compare it to when he came, how he transformed this Indian test side and left captaincy at the pinnacle of success. Virat came into the team during the era of MSD. It was the time when the Indian test team had slowly started gaining confidence, firstly under Ganguly and then MSD. MSD made a champion home side but could not triumph over the overseas challenges. Kohli did just that. This pinch of aggression and thirst to win from any condition might have been the only ingredient missing for India. You could have predicted till now that I rate Captain Kohli as much superior to batter Kohli.

We can make 3 distinct phases which reflect his form, attitude and thinking. From this, we could predict his mental stage. First phase from debut till getting captaincy, we saw an average learning batter eager to contribute to the team more than his batting, captaincy? Might be. These 33 matches gave a batting average of below 50, nothing extraordinary, but they highlighted a few very special instances. First, Kohli found a home in Adelaide, from his maiden test century to consecutive tons in both innings. Adelaide Oval made him feel like one of its own. Also, during the Sri Lanka tour, he was standing captain in place of MSD. His captainship, along with all-around performances by the team, we were able to end a 22-year drought of series wins against Sri Lanka. This prepared us for his captaincy stint. Not settling for draws, going for the wins, and giving the opposition back in their language. These were a few new things in the Indian test setup.

The second phase, i.e. him becoming captain till lockdown, showed us what Virat Kohli means when he says business. Aggressive captain, relentless batsman and striving for even greater heights. He became the best test captain for India, winning 40 out of 68 matches (win percentage of 58%, only lower than Ponting and Steve Waugh for 40+ match captains). He did all of that while scoring 20 centuries with a 60+ average. Maintaining such a high average for a prolonged period of 7-8 years is some alien-level stuff we witnessed. The image of Kohli signalling “My bat will do the talking” in the 2018 Perth test is forever etched on my mind. He overcame the English challenge earlier in 2018 by batting through nearly 600 runs and put critics to bed after his horrifying 2014 English summer. 2018 was an unthinkable domination from an Indian captain batter.

During all this, we took our home series wins for granted and remained undefeated for the entire period. The nonchalant nature of those series wins used to astonish me. He mastered the art of reading the pitch along with the spin wizardry of Ashwin-Jadeja, which kept the opposition on their toes. Indian fans will always be grateful to him for one more thing: building a strong Indian fast bowling attack. Firstly, with Ishant & Umesh and then GOAT Bumrah, Shami & Siraj. He, along with Ravi Shastri and Bharat Arun, made our fast bowlers potent. All this grinding gave fruit in the Lord’s test of 2021. How can we forget those 60 overs, the captain telling his troops, “They should feel like hell for the next 60 overs on the field”, and his troops delivering exactly. Bowling out the entire English side in the 52nd over for a meagre score of 120, ensuring a 150-run win. But during this latter part of captaincy, his batting started taking a hit; captaincy might have been the reason. Leaving captaincy and a better performance in sight? might be.

But this “worry-free Kohli batting through days” phase never came. This phase might have been the worst of all. Since the pandemic, He lost his rhythm. It took him 3 years to get his wheels rolling in ODI and produced a phenomenal World Cup campaign. But he could not replicate that in the whites. 4th stump deliveries haunted him, and unfortunately, he continued to fall prey to spinners also, often on Indian soil. These were surely a few years to forget for him. Stats for these years came even lower than his first phase, with him not getting any younger and chances of another 2–3-year dream run were turning bleak day by day, he bid adieu to this format.

Taking this decision when being just 700 runs away from that godly record of 10k test runs must have taken quite courage for him. The thought behind this decision embodies the character called “Virat Kohli”. Striving hard but not waiting for things to happen. Surely, he lives by the same principles off-field also. He chose legacy over numbers and grace over achievements. Whether 9230 or 10k, his presence on the field was a defining period for test cricket. He redefined test cricket; he made it cool. He made whites cool. Bye bye Kohli!

And to borrow from Roger Federer’s Dartmouth College speech, “He graduated from cricket today”.

Image credits: Reuters/India Today/ Dean Lewins/AAP Image/ Getty Images/ Crictracker/ The Guardian