Is Virat Kohli the next "Great Indian Batting Monument" already?

Virat Kohli

It is immensely alluring to analyse Virat Kohli, the batsman he is. Looking at his stats, he has played 118 one-day international games till date, 81 runs short of 5000 runs in the shorter format of the game and averages a whopping 52.32 runs per game. He is certainly up for this debate. Isn’t he?

When you talk about batting greats, it’s easy to get sucked into the Vivian Richards, Gary Sobers, Ricky Pontings, Allan Borders, Sunil Gavaskars and of course, the greatest of all time Sachin Tendulkar. Now, why I started this list with two west Indian batsmen is because, Virat Kohli has a sense of dexterity and guile about his strokes that are synonymous of the batsmen from the Caribbean and certainly adorns the mauling power of the great sir Vivian Richards.

Virat Kohli might not look all that sumptuous with his chip down the track to spinners or even the fast bowlers and certainly might not produce the cover-drive straight out of the coaching manual but what he does is, instigate passion and spirit for the on-looker and that for me is his specialty. The way he uses his wrists to drill the ball through the covers and the way he muscles the ball up over mid-wicket and square-leg is delicious to witness. He has a style of his own and I hope, he remains a Virat Kohli with everything he does till he finishes.

A relentless run-making machine in 118 one-day games to go with a Test century at a slowing down surface at the WACA is enough to state that the batsman is up there to be counted and belongs to the international stage.

Virat Kohli is 24 years old, 4 days short of becoming 25 and is in that phase of his career, when he doesn’t know anything about the ‘fear’ syndrome. He has a panache about himself when he talks in the presentation ceremony, isn’t bothered about going face to face when it comes to sledging and bantering with the opponent and is certainly fearless when it comes to batting as well.

When India required 35 to win off 18 balls in the Nagpur one-dayer a couple of days ago, there was a smidgen skepticism about whether India would get over the finishing line even though Kohli and Dhoni, the two best finishers of the modern game were still at the crease.

Bailey handed over the 48th over of the Indian innings to Faulkner and it was of paramount importance that India kept that asking rate within touching distance going into the last two overs. Faulkner’s first ball of the over was a back of a length delivery from around the wicket and kamaal Kohli danced down the track and hoicked it over mid-off for a crucial boundary. To go with the boundary in the first ball of the 48th over, Kohli manufactured a further couple of boundaries in the 3rd and 4th ball of the over in contrasting style on each one of those occasions and eased the pressure of the game for India.

If you were meticulous to what he managed in this over, he took a calculative risk that was imperative at that point of the game and it paid off. That is what makes his batting all the more special. A sense of arrogance and disdain with which he mauls bowlers is adrenaline pumping for a lot of onlookers and even the non-striker at the other end of 22 yards.

Just delving a bit more into his batting, he’s a very good player of the short ball and plays the pull shot to good effect, one, which will come in handy when India travel abroad. His prowess with playing spin bowling is a signature in itself and has more than a decent defensive shot. There is no question mark over his maturity when it comes to understanding the state of the game and arising to the need of the hour and I am very confident in saying that, we should be proud to have unearthed a batsman, who can be relied upon when the chips are down.

It’s easy to say that, out of 11 centuries Kohli has made while batting second, India has managed to win all of them but on a more deeper note, 3 or 4 of his centuries in the last couple of years have come in circumstances when India have been in jeopardy of bowing out of a Tri-nation tournament or battling to stay afloat in a bilateral series. His 133 off 86 balls against SriLanka at Hobart in the Common wealth bank series in 2012 was an ominous game for India and the situation got even more worse when SriLanka piled on 320 runs, leaving India to get those runs in 40 overs and Kohli stepped up in grand style and did the job.

Again, the other day against Australia in Nagpur when India needed to chase down a mammoth 351 to stay alive in the series, Kohli yet again played a defining knock that got India over the line. So, it isn’t a case of chasing big targets alone, it’s about rising up to the plate when your team is living on a knife’s edge and Kohli seems to be relentless at this craft of his.

To just reiterate my previous point on his age, the amount of cricket left in him and maybe going on to captain India in the near future, the stars do seem bright in Kohli’s case of maybe going on to become the next “Great Indian Batting Monument” but for now, let’s perpetuate the million dollar question and continue to enjoy the delicious delights churned out by Virat Kohli.