Disrobing King Kohli

There have been very few playwrights who have conceptualised some theatrical classics with intrigue, treachery and innuendo as their central theme. Surely even fewer could have penned such a poignantly wretched four-act tragedy that has been the story of Virat Kohli over a period of some four months that ended with him stepping down from India’s Test captaincy also, his last bastion.

William Shakespeare’s King Lear perhaps ranks closest. In this play, the mythical Lear as King of Britain is mentally fatigued after a long reign. Out of good faith and in exchange for intrinsic appreciation of his gesture for the future, the king decides to transfer his authority to two of his daughters. His abdication nevertheless results in the whole of Britain, not just him, suffering dreadfully from that decision.

In the same vein, few could have imagined three years ago, let alone foreseen, that a man so revered in his country, a global icon that so aptly represented modern India’s challenge to the world, a man referred to both meritoriously and metaphorically as King Kohli, would be abdicating his throne with deathly suddenness.

While the kingdom of Indian cricket is unlikely to suffer a similar fate, it will never be the same. Some believe dirty politics that prevailed not too long ago in Indian cricket have been revived. Others believe the veneer of cult leadership has been lifted. Whatever the truth and whether there is weight in each contention, the fact remains that this is a watershed period in Indian cricket that will have implications for the sport in the country.

The jury is still out as to whether he jumped or was pushed. And that even if he jumped, was he encouraged, even egged on lightly to make the leap.

Clearly, his departure from the leadership role of the Indian ODI team was not his, even if it was part of his making by stepping down from the leadership of the shorter format of limited-overs cricket, in both national and franchise teams. This gave his antagonists (for all practical purposes) the excuse that a national side can’t have two different white ball captains.

Give us an inch and we’ll take the mile.

So what compelled him to pull out completely? To get to that you first have to get into his mind, his philosophy of life, his attitude towards the game and what drives him.

The Man

He can appear overtly aggressive, even brash with a touch of arrogance in his proclamations. But judging from the visual cues, Virat is quite the opposite as a person. Any Indian batsman, let alone captain, who can walk up to a Pakistani bowler who has vowed to get his wicket and gift him his bat, as he did to Mohammad Amir in a 2016 T20 World Cup practice session in India, can be anything but that.

Fast forward to October 2021 and he smiled and hugged two young Pakistani openers on the field after they had just delivered to him a 10-wicket loss in a World Cup match against all odds. Hours after that he was standing loyally and firmly behind a Muslim teammate who was at the receiving end of hate speech from some of his countrymen because of his faith. In doing that, he was well aware that he was confronting and eyeballing the radical Islamophobes back home, in both government and his cricket board as well.

These two instances bring out the essence of just who is Virat Kohli. He is a man who will do what he thinks is the right thing to do. He will stand by his beliefs and principles. And he will do all that overtly, without being apologetic.

Given all that he is a fierce patriot, who will go into the battle for his country if asked for. His passion for the game is partly because he loves the sport and partly because of his team and country. I cannot forget how, as he fielded in the deep, Virat fought to keep back his tears once South Africa, chasing India’s total of 152, crossed 122 and eliminated the Men-in-Blue on a decimal point from the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup, even if they were to win the game. The hurt he carried for the rest of the game was so evident.

Yet how strong-willed he is can be seen by the fact that a month after his debut for Delhi as an 18-year-old, he agreed to play for his side against Karnataka the day after his father passed away following a protracted illness. Only when he was out, for 90, did he leave to arrange his father’s funeral. Such was his commitment even than to his team when they needed him.

When Dhoni suddenly called it a day from Tests as both captain and player after the third Test against Australia at Melbourne in the 4-Test 2014-15 series, Kohli, who was vice-captain (and who had already captained India in the first Test as replacement captain to an injured Dhoni), was the man who was now set to lead India in the long term. Stunned, he went back to his hotel room where his fiancée Anushka was also staying and after breaking the news to her, broke down himself, overwhelmed that he was now his beloved country’s captain.

That has been Kohli the man — steely yet emotional, passionate in both heart and soul. You don’t mess with such a man’s mind.

The Cricketer

When Sachin Tendulkar retired, the Indian cricket fan realised how the Australians, if not the cricket playing world, would have felt in late summer in 1948 when Donald Bradman walked back to the pavilion for the last time at The Oval. And how, no matter the merits of Lindsay Hassett to Greg Chappell to Allan Border to Ricky Ponting to Steve Smith, there can never be like the Don again.

And yet within a few months of Sachin’s last bow, with no disrespect — in fact lifelong veneration – to this great batter, the Indian fans could only talk Kohli. He may not have carried the languidness of his childhood idol, but he had his own brand of panache that sliced through much of what was bowled at him. His cover drives and flicks off his feet became his trademark though he could play with absolute aplomb in almost all shots out there.

He created his own fan following, with a marked contrast in style to Sachin. Where Sachin was passively aggressive though, Kohli wore his ire on his sleeve when it came to facing the fast men or sledgers around him.

He set his own high standards and among his ambitions was to score against Australia’s pace attack on their home turf. There he planned to fight fire with fire. For too long, he had seen his predecessors plan for survival. Standing in as captain in the first Test of the 2014-15 tour of Australia, Kohli scored 115, becoming the fourth Indian to score a century in his first Test as a captain. More impactfully, he struck another ton, 141 in the second innings while daring to chase an improbable total.

Appointed the full-time captain in that 4th Test at Sydney, Kohli smashed 147 in the first innings, thus becoming the first batter in Test history to score hundreds in the first three innings as captain.

In One-Day Internationals, especially he remains the master of the chase, once scoring 183 not out against arch-rivals Pakistan to overhaul a 300-plus target. His average in chasing remains higher than in batting first.

As his exploits continue, he is set to break all records with at least 5-7 years of international cricket left in him. The intensity he brings on the field, whether as a batsman or a fielder, carries its own premium. He trains hard and pushes limits every day and sets his own benchmarks; then challenges them.

The Captain

Captaincy may have come to him when he was least prepared for it, at least in Test cricket, but he lost no time in leading by example. He could be ruthless in his expectations, and it is said that empathy came late to him, if at all.

He both commanded and demanded, often from players who had been used to taking the field with a lower level of fitness. He discovered that flaw when in the first Test in Sri Lanka his bowlers tired in the second innings and despite a huge first-innings lead, India found themselves chasing and lost. He would win the series, the first Indian captain to do so in Sri Lanka. Half bitten, he thereafter launched a fitness regime that made sure his armoury would fire at the same levels even in third or fourth spells.

Kohli also was possibly the first Indian captain who wanted a pace armoury against the age-old reliance of Indian teams on spinners. Though the spearheads now leading India’s attack are credited to the system BCCI has put in place with high-performance academies and upward transitions, many still feel that it has been Kohli who got the best out of them. Ishant averaged much less per wicket under his captaincy just to give one example.

Rising to every challenge bowlers from around the world threw at him, Kohli expected the same from his other batters. He was seen to be unforgiving in exerting pressure on such stars as Pujara and Rahane, wanting them to score faster and to have a better defence respectively. To the extent that their very places were threatened.

Kohli also went for five specialist bowlers, though that strategy has been linked to having started as far back as Ganguly’s tenure. He brought in Rohit Sharma as a Test opener, though many say that was on coach Ravi Shastri’s urging. His faith persistence with Pant nevertheless paid off. Some feel that had he had a similar heart to heart motivational talks with some other players, they too would be on the side now.

For over seven years, he led India with such fire in the eye and firepower that he helped create. But the strain was beginning to tell. His last century in any format came in 2019. With his ardent supporter, Shastri, resigning, some close to the system feel that Kohli read the writing on The Wall (pun intended). In fact, there was news much before Rahul Dravid accepted the position that the soft-spoken, mild-mannered former Indian captain was reluctant because of Kohli’s insistence in his style of leadership.

It started with the T20 parting in September last. But that four of his titles would be relinquished or taken away, all within 120 days after some seven years of wearing each of them proudly, at home and abroad, has blindsided many.

And that after giving his blood, sweat and tears to uniting and leading a team of precocious talent to beat the best on their home turf, he would step back when there was the last mountain to climb – an ICC Trophy. Though he did win that for India as their Under-19 captain.

Kohli has left behind a legacy that will be hard to follow, let alone surpass. Rohit can perhaps match it in white-ball cricket. But no captain in history has scored more runs (5,864) than Virat at a better average (54.80). Likewise, no captain has a higher century to Test captaincy ratio.

He took India from No. 7 in the International Cricket Council Test rankings to No. 1 and then held it for almost his entire reign. He became the first Indian captain to win a series in Australia and Sri Lanka. And led 2-1 in England last summer before the postponed last Test.

The Brand 

One question that has been asked for the past two years minimum: Has brand Kohli become too big? As mentioned above, it was unimaginable when Sachin was nearing the end of his career that his name would not remain predominant for posterity, quintessentially Bradmanesque.

Yet, it was brand Kohli that dominated the share of mind almost immediately after 2013 and Sachin, perhaps due to living a low profile retired life, resided in the fans subconsciousness. Despite his legendary status, it was Kohli, along with Dhoni, who was listed in 2016 among the top 100 global sports personalities. Indicative of his standing is the fact that he was ahead of Rafael Nadal.

All that was good in Indian cricket was being attributed to him. The system and the Indian Premier League that was harvesting the new crop of players was becoming irrelevant. As was the role of the Board of Control for Cricket in India executive and the selectors in the successes that team India was enjoying.

More than that, it was his aura that perhaps was seen to be too dominating. The part was becoming greater than not just the other parts but also the sum. His brand positioning was also becoming at odds with the incumbent national narrative.

Just how embedded he had become in his own core persona was evident when he publicly refuted the BCCI statement that he was asked to reconsider his relinquishment of the T20 captaincy. When Chetan Sharma insisted later that he had been asked, Kohli did not rescind.

The Verdict

That he had long term plans for leadership in the Test arena was revealed by Ricky Ponting when he recalled a conversation with Kohli in the first half of the IPL 2021. That, coupled with his desire to also lead India in ODIs when he stepped down from the T20I captaincy, shows that he saw himself at the helm till at least the 2023 ODI World Cup and to lead India’s challenge for the next Test Championship title due in 2023.

With that in mind, the question begs to be asked: Why would the man who just led India to the final of the Test Championship and semi-finals of the last ODI World Cup, both of which India lost marginally, stepped down from the former and be fired from the latter?

The most plausible conclusion is that Indian cricket wants to move on from a Kohli’s dominant image. To challenge him in a private debate or through the media that despite India’s rise over the last few years he was making errors of judgement in team combinations and man management, and that his style of leadership was becoming a tad authoritative and too overpowering of other components, would lead to only resistance and possibly form groups in the team.

Therefore, it is best to cut down to size his influence and remove him from the platform of official communications, which would be pressers and media briefings. Kohli sensed that possibly going into the third and final Test at Cape Town. As such when he bent down and shouted at the stump mic on that fateful day, it could well be that he was speaking to someone closer to home.