Virat Kohli | Evolution of a brattish talent to a global superstar

The 2015 ODI World Cup was around the corner. But there was important business to be taken care of before that. A 4-match test series Down Under was to kick off. He was the stand-in captain. This was the start of a long tour which culminated in the World Cup and there was a lot riding on this one. He started off making a statement of intent – he chose a rookie leggie Karn Sharma over a seasoned campaigner like Ravichandran Ashwin. Though an aggressive move, it was probably foolhardy and it promptly backfired.

It did not always seem waiting to happen. Kohli was not the school boy genius that was reported about obsessively in the newspapers. He did score enough through the age groups though to be appointed captain of the Indian U19 squad for the World cup in 2008. He led from the front and India won the World Cup. In what was a sign of things to come, the headlines covered his brattish personality as much, if not more than the boys’ performance. The seemingly pointless aggression was jarring. And for a generation fed on a diet of the likes of Sachin, Dravid, Laxman and Kumble for over a decade and more, the expletives were unpalatable. Ex-players would criticize, roll their eyes in despair. Many believed the overt aggression would lead to his downfall and many more were probably waiting for it.

Cut to the present and in a few days Kohli will be the one walking out for the toss in whites as India face the West Indies. He is not a monk yet by any stretch of imagination, but the transformation has been captivating. From an angry boy who wanted to be the world beater, he has sobered down a bit, into the man who probably knows he is a world beater. Kohli is who he is because of the aggression, and not despite it. What sets him apart from most contemporaries though is an acute awareness of his game and the burning desire to work out the weaknesses.

From an angry boy who wanted to be the world beater, he has sobered down a bit, into the man who probably knows he is a world beater

Kohli comes from a middle class Delhi family. His father was the guiding force in his early playing days, driving him to practice daily, like countless other support systems that fuel millions of aspirations in India. In 2006, Kohli was in the middle of a Ranji trophy match, unbeaten overnight when he received the news of his father’s passing. He was central to his team saving the follow-on. He stayed on to take his team to safety and then went home for the final rites. There is no glory in doing that, no single right way to handle such moments in life and it is a very private decision. But the fact that he stayed showed how much this sport mattered to him. In his own words and his mother’s, the way he approached cricket changed that day onwards – you just cannot stay back to play in such a situation and then not strive to be the best you can at that sport. Cricketing glory was his father’s dream for him and he is living it now as well as anyone can.

One of the most stunning aspects of Kohli’s cricket of late has been his fitness. His running between the wickets and the outfielding in the last WC T20 and the IPL was simply sensational. Kohli is a product of this generation and the current crop of cricketers are generally fit players. However, in 2012, Kohli realized that he could push himself harder and it could make him even better at his craft. And he turned it around completely with his diet and fitness regimen. He is probably one of the fittest cricketers going around now, and by some accounts he is as fit, if not more, as Novak Djokovic. They don’t come much fitter than that! Cricket has traditionally been a sport which lay a lot more emphasis on the core cricketing skills of hitting a ball and hurling it and anything beyond was seen as a plus. That explains how the likes of Arjun Ranatunga and Inzamam ul Haq can be bonafide legends of the game. With a lot of science going into body stats and game fitness, players of the current generation of any sport are probably the fittest ever yet. Kohli is only taking it a little further ahead and making his fitness levels a key differentiator in a sport where top fitness is not necessarily indispensable.

It is a telling image, one that is at loggerheads with his bad boy personality cult and a gentle reminder not to judge a book by the cover.

The second instance, Sachin relates to in his biography. On the night Sachin retired, Kohli walked to him in his hotel room and offered to him his most prized possession – a good luck charm given to him by his late father – and touched Sachin’s feet. He was in tears and Sachin was on the verge of. Sachin returned it to him and asked him to keep it as it was a memory of his father. It is a telling image, one that is at loggerheads with his bad boy personality cult and a gentle reminder not to judge a book by the cover.

As a Sachin fan, this warmed my heart a bit, but there is still the elephant in the room I need to address. Is Kohli better than Sachin? Was this how the previous generation felt when Sachin burst on to the scene and questions were being asked if he was better than Sunny? The convenient answer is that it is a futile exercise to compare people playing in different times and all that jazz. But, one thing that we can most certainly say is that Kohli’s current patch of form would not compare too unfavorably to Sachin’s 1998. And that is a very high praise. Will he end up breaking Sachin’s records? Will he be a better player than Sachin was over an entire career? The jury is still out on that, but the next decade of evidence collection promises to be some very compelling viewing. There is one area though where Kohli is already outscoring Sachin – captaincy.

In India, traditionally, captaincy hasn’t been kind to the superstar players, right from GR Vishwanath to Sunil Gavaskar to Sachin Tendulkar. Compare that with someone like Australia where Allan Border, Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke were all the best players of their teams. It could very well be a cultural thing, but with Kohli, it promises to be different.

This tour to West Indies marks an important point in Kohli’s evolution as a leader and the leading batsman of his generation. As a captain, he will be judged on his overseas victories and this is one area where India has slipped up in the last couple of years. As a player, Kohli has pretty much shot down the debate on who the best batsman in the world is in the shorter formats. For him to truly and unambiguously be acknowledged as the best in the business though, Kohli must kick on and show his worth in the whites. If his last few Test match outings are any indication, he is headed in the right direction. He has made no secret of his desire to be the best in the world and is going about chasing that dream with aplomb. And we all know how good he is with chases. So, fasten your seatbelts, folks. The reign of King Kohli has only just begun.