Should Virat Kohli cherry pick his games after his recent injury

Technology has seen a huge boom in the last few years with internet and broadcasting reaching into the darkest nooks and corners of the world, and making sports an enormous source of entertainment for people. It has consequently led to the demand for more number of matches every year across all the sports with athletes requiring an insane amount of fitness to remain at the top of their game.

When AB de Villiers, widely considered as one of the fittest players in the international cricket, stated tiredness as one of his main reasons for retirement, many were taken aback. And Kohli’s injury, coming a day after it, has only multiplied the concern among fans. The struggle of a burnt out Kohli was clearly seen in Royal Challengers Bangalore’s IPL this season. Though given the run machine that he is, Kohli still managed to garner 530 runs, his body language was clearly giving the signs and the fact was his neck injury occurred in an IPL game against Sunrisers Hyderabad wasn’t surprising either.

This is where Kohli comes as a source of a worry. Unlike de Villiers, who never looked like chasing figures and records in his territory or even worry enough about glory, as his retirement just one year ahead of World Cup evidently showed us, Kohli has embarked on a path of greatness. At a stage when de Villiers decided to retire, Kohli would most probably try to come up with an even more grinding routine to be at the top of his game, regardless of the consequences.

It would be terrible for Kohli, one of the greatest to have ever graced the game, to hang up his boots as abruptly and unceremoniously as de Villiers. Hence, the onus is very much upon BCCI to keep Kohli as safe as possible from the throes of age and burnout.

Fortunately, India’s biggest curse in this scenario could also be their biggest boon, IPL. India could react to it proactively rather than waiting for the time to come and hope Kohli’s natural body grows unnatural endurance, thanks to the large pool of talents the domestic talent coming up from the cash-rich tournament every year. Over the past 10 seasons in the IPL, local talents have pushed fringe overseas players to the bench with their displays. 

Domestic tournaments like Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy, Deodhar Trophy, Vijay Hazare Trophy, and Irani Trophy have stopped becoming a fodder for national team selection now. IPL has become a platform for window shopping for the national selectors and it has worked evidently well in India’s favor. The Indian side that will take on Afghanistan later this month include players like Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Hardik Pandya, and Shardul Thakur, who have mostly been products of the IPL. Though they did well in the first-class cricket, it was IPL that primarily brought them to the fore.

Resting players have had varied consequences in different sports like basketball and football, where the crowd and the board have shown their disregard in the absence of star players. However, cricket in India enjoys a huge advantage over them as the crowd here won’t be fuming over Kohli’s absence, if an Ajinkya Rahane, or Dinesh Karthik, or Rohit Sharma takes the side to victory.

With the increasing demand in modern day cricket, BCCI would now have to use its meticulous structure that has been placed perfectly over years, which connects the grassroots to the international platform. Kohli deserves to retire from cricket as the game’s all-time great and it would majorly rely on the board to help him bow out in that manner.