For Indian cricket, the two stalwarts are priceless, and will remain so
What are the similarities between the Taj Mahal and Virat KohliIJ Weird enough question, isn’t itIJ To begin with, both are grand: Taj in structure, Virat in stature. Both symbolise love in its purest form: The Mughal-era monument to romantics, the young captain of Men in Blue to cricket fans across the globe. Both are true wonders of the world: The former literally and the latter almost literally.
Unlike in other sports, where the answer to an assessment of who is better — lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo; Novak Djokovic or Andy Murray; Sebastian Vettel or lewis Hamilton; leBron James or Stephen Curry — can lead to a full-blown fight, Kohli has made the lives of experts and fans simple by progressively moving past each option available.
Scoring runs across all formats at an unprecedented consistency has put to rest apprehensions about the impact an added burden of leading the side can have on the individual performance of the Delhi boy. His record in Test cricket since taking over reins from MS Dhoni during the tour down under in late 2014, will intimidate his opponents. Kohli’s record in the limited-overs cricket makes others look like muggles.
A true victory of any person, be it any walk of life, is when he/she earns adulation from other stalwarts in the profession. Here too, Kohli emerges triumphant hands down. Not to overlook the fact that leading the most popular group of men in a cricket-crazy nation is arguably the most significant yet challenging task in the world of sports. It can be nerve-wrecking with the endless scrutiny and judgement one has to suffer: sometimes bouquets, sometimes brickbats. Kohli, however, has shown that he is a born leader who knows only one way — to lead from the front.
If the age-old phrase, ‘Morning shows the day’, is still in fashion, then the day of Indian cricket certainly appears bright and shiny. A more than a glimpse of the same was at display in Pune last Sunday, when Kohli in his very first game as ODI skipper, amassed 122 runs off just 105 deliveries in a chase of a daunting 351-run target set by Eoin Morgan-led England side. This innings, like all other of his in the past, immediately took social media by storm. Comparisons were drawn again, but unlike previously, this time it was with an extra-terrestrial object, an ‘alien’. Popular Indian commentator Harsha Bhogle summed up Kohli’s innings in about the best possible way in a tweet: “Just another day at work for @ImKohli. Brushed his teeth, had a shower, breakfast, century in a chase. Just another day really!”
There is another side to Kohli, his life off the field, and almost as popular as his on-field recognitions — the side where he is fun-loving, funny, smart, and possessing all the qualities one looks for in a youth icon, a role model. He keeps a nice balance between his personal and professional lives.
In an interview to former English skipper Nasser Hussain recently, Kohli said he did not have too many friends outside of cricket, and counted it as one of the reasons his focus remains undivided. He doesn’t shy away from speaking on subjects of public concern, to the media. The latest example of this was his strong message of disgust to the onlookers of alleged mass molestation in Bangalore on the New Year’s eve.
It was not a bed of roses all along for the 28-year-old. The 2014 tour of England comes automatically to mind, where he had a torrid time facing the swinging deliveries. That tour — where the English fast bowlers, spearheaded by James Anderson, kept him in guessing with late swings and enforced a 5-0 whitewash on India, and with Kohli's scores reading 1, 8, 25, 0, 39, 28, 0, 7, 6, 20 in 10 innings — remains till date the only blot in his otherwise marvellous career.
His on-field aggression today is more confined to his one weapon of destruction: His bat, which has taken over the role of doing the bulk of the talking. A recent episode where English pacer Anderson during a Press conference had said that Kohli’s batting wasn’t exposed to home conditions, drew brickbats from all corners. The jibe irked both Kohli’s teammates and fans and what followed was another glimpse of maturity of the Indian skipper. He played the role of a pacifier between James Anderson and bowler Ravichandran Ashwin, who escorted the English cricketer almost to the batting crease and gave him a taste of his own medicine.
In the initial phase of his career, Kohli was branded ‘arrogant’ and ‘brash’ by a section of media and a few experts due to his on-field aggression. Comparisons were drawn with the likes of Sachin Tendulkar who, throughout his career, was regarded as the brand ambassador of ‘sportsmanship’.
Two great moments from the last decade of Indian cricket comes to mind to brush aside any such parallel. First, during the finals of the CB series Down Under, when the man-on-a-mission Tendulkar, who was just a shot away from scoring his maiden ton on Australian soil in an ODI, was hit on his shoulder by a nasty Brett lee beamer, only for the Aussie pace machine to apologise to the little Master and see his team lose the bilateral series for the first time against a team from the sub-continent.
Fast forward six years. A brand-new Team India with all members of the fab-five (Tendulkar, Sehwag, Dravid, Ganguly and laxman) having already passed on the baton to the next generation, while facing a fierce challenge from the new-look Australian team at Adelaide, was battling to save some pride. Kohli, batting a batsman’s dream, was hit on a follow-up by Mitchell Johnson in a moment of belligerence. Unlike Tendulkar, Kohli didn’t shy away from speaking his mind to the Aussie bowler. Indian cricket had changed.
It was a moment that established the beginning of the Virat Kohli era.
