Virat Kohli, as a Test player, was as much a charismatic leader as he was the ambassador of the game. Kohli missed out on scoring 10,000 Test runs by 770 runs and there was an evident freefall in his returns and performances but the time he peaked, he made sure he owned the format.
“For 60 overs, they should feel like hell out there.” Goosebumpy right? I wonder, why? If the rain has eaten up a significant chunk of a Test match and any of the teams, especially the defending one, sees a tiny opportunity to sneak in a win, would it not try? I am trying to imagine what any other captain would say to fire up his bowlers, other than that? Maybe, “We have a good total on the board, let’s see what the ball does in the first few overs, let’s try to get some early wickets and then see where it takes us…” Well, Virat Kohli wasn’t a “let’s see, let’s try” person. If it were up to him, he would have wanted the umpires to challenge his Indian team to win that infamous Lord’s Test in 2021 in 50 overs with the ball. That was Virat Kohli in whites.
An average of 30.72, just three centuries since 2020 and ever-obvious technical flaw and vulnerability against deliveries pitched outside the off-stump, which honestly just wasn’t improving after innumerable pushbacks of the temptation to have a good at it – the signs were there. Three centuries – the same number of tons Kohli would slam in a week in the ODIs in his sleep was a monumental decline. Kohli’s diminishing returns in Tests, apart from all the things, told everyone that, after all, he is also a human. Kohli chasing a 5th-6th stump delivery was a diabetic patient, who, after avoiding all the sugar in tea, fruits and bakery products, would lose his inhibitions looking at a luscious gulaab-jamun and eventually have it.
That century in Perth, after a forgettable home series against New Zealand, where he aggregated just 93 runs in six innings, instilled some belief in the fans, the team management and most importantly, in himself, that Kohli, the Test player, was still around. A bit rusty, a bit scratchy, still a bit all over the place, but there. What followed after Perth was more than anything, disheartening, bit by bit, one hesitant shot after another, one unshackling edge after another, one amused facial expression after another. The “Yugon ki ladai” (A battle for the ages), which the Aussie papers advertised the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy as, gradually turned into “apni temptation se ladai”, “apne natural instincts se ladai” and eventually “khud se ladai.” As it turned out, it was unhurried but an eventual takedown of a batsman, whose unconditional love for Test cricket knew no bounds.
Kohli and Test cricket – the love story
Test cricket was made for Kohli and vice-versa also stands true. His final statement too wasn’t about what he was able to achieve in Test cricket and the unbeatable army of fast bowlers he built, the fitness culture, or the intensity he brought which made the red-ball cricket come alive but about how the format tested him, the way it shaped him, the grind, the grit it needed and that, it eventually made him a better person.
In more ways than one, Test cricket mirrors life. It tests you, sucks the living daylights out of you, needs you to be at the top of your game every second but if you are not, it also gives you a ray of hope, a chance to come back, something which is rarely possible in T20 cricket. Test cricket gave Kohli a chance, it allowed him what he wanted to be and become as a player and a captain and eventually flourished.
Kohli – the bully, who was tried hard to be bullied
Kohli flew the nasty Aussie crowd a bird on his first tour Down Under. It took guts to be a Kohli, but in his mind, he was standing up for himself, his team. It is only after he got married, became a father, there was a restraint in Kohli’s demeanour, celebrations and even conduct on the field. The roars and the fist pumps still come out, but that yesteryear’s Kohli was a different gravy. He was the Australian the Aussies hadn’t faced before. He was called rude, brash, spoiled brat and whatnot because he chose to stand up to whatever the world champions thought they could have gotten away with. They might have, in the past but not against this man. Even in the recent tour, he shoulder-bumped the 19-year-old Sam Konstas at the MCG. Was Kohli at fault? Maybe, but it was a reminder from Kohli that the thin-haired moustache kid may be in his own country, in front of his home crowd but the tourists weren’t going to be hospitable, at least Kohli wasn’t going to be.
Virat Kohli chest-bumping Tim Paine after a close shave
Kohli wore his heart on his sleeve. He stood up to the bullies like Mitchell Johnson, David Warner, Steve Smith and Tim Paine among others. Kohli didn’t back down and probably on his third and fourth tours of Australia, the home team kind of understood the assignment. Australia started appreciating what Kohli did and was about, the passion with which he played, the never-ending intensity and gumption he exhibited, the Indian tours Down Under were advertised with his life-sized posters, articles, listicles and the Aussie media going on and on about him using him as the face.
Kohli made Test cricket marketable, introducing the format to a younger generation who wouldn’t have watched a session at length. He made the broadcasters go weak in their knees, forced the fans to drop whatever they were doing and watch him and the purists scratch their heads in disbelief that this was another way of playing Test cricket. Kohli left but was rarely beaten, he defended but never to slow the game down, he did like he owned it.
Apart from all the chest-bumps, shoulder bumps, emptying pockets, send-off, mocking celebrations, there was a Test batter who could play sessions at lengths, score as many as seven double tons, there was steeliness of an eagle in his eyes, the focus of a sharp-shooter on the job at hand just frustrating and frustrating the bowling attacks.
Kohli, the broadcaster’s favourite
Kohli’s legacy is for everyone to see. He is the most successful captain in India’s Test history and is likely to remain so, however, it’s unfortunate that his career has ended with ‘what could have been’ reactions rather than ‘what it is’. Post-COVID Kohli was a lost one, maybe it was owing to the pitches India prepared in order to win home games to qualify for WTC Final or the definitive chinks in his armour. For our generation, he was the ambassador of Test cricket, who gave this format the respect and platform it deserved; he put it on a pedestal that only a very few could, but COVID seemed to weaken the hands that made the game reach where it did through Kohli.
It was a dream for Kohli to get to the 10,000-run mark in Tests, which he ultimately failed to but maybe, just maybe, the retirement was also out of respect for Test cricket, that he wasn’t able to play red-ball the way it should have of late and that the format deserved someone better, fresher. Which might be true as well. But good luck, India, in finding another passionate soul who gave his everything he had, every second he was on the field, because Test cricket was richer with Kohli in it and now just the ODIs remain. So long!