Let us roll back the years to 19 September 2010. A certain 21-year-old took guard against a ravenous Mumbai Indians bowling attack, with the Royal Challengers Bangalores in a spot of bother at 100/4. His team needed 66 off 37 deliveries as he trod to the middle.
The youngster had shown sporadic signs of brilliance with the bat, and a tinge of brashness to go with his still-budding persona. He was a part of the Indian cricket squad, but was yet to play that one decisive knock that would make the cricketing world take notice of his presence in the circuit.
He looked different that day, though. The fifth delivery that he faced was deposited for a thumping six over deep mid-wicket. He looked charged. Determination, with a smidgen of desperation, was apparent in his eyes. His talent seeped into every grain of his willow, and it hit the ball with the precision of a surgeon, but the power of a maverick.
RCB needed 28 from the last two overs, then 13 off the last 6 deliveries and finally, 3 runs off the ultimate ball. It looked like the youngster would finally witness his moment of glory, as he readied himself to smack Zaheer Khan out of the park.
However, it was not to be. He hit the ball high into the air, and Ambati Rayudu--being the brilliant fielder that he is--caught the swirling ball with ease. It was all over; RCB lost by an excruciating margin of two runs. The youngster, however, had shown tremendous determination and had hit three sensational back-to-back boundaries in the penultimate over.
The youngster was Virat Kohli and bowler he hit those boundaries against was Lasith Malinga. Little did the former know that this knock was a glimpse of the impending future.
Fast forward to 28 February 2012. India were in the middle of a nightmarish season: they had two back to back Test series whitewashes in England and Australia, and were now facing down the barrel of toppling out of the CB series that was being hosted by the Kangaroos.
They needed to chase Sri Lanka’s total in less than 40 overs to keep breathing in the competition.
Riding on the backs of two flawless centuries from Tillakaratne Dilshan and Kumar Sangakkara, Sri Lanka had one foot in the final with their innings ending at 320/4.
The previous contests between the two teams had ended with a tie and a loss for MS Dhoni’s men. They had failed to chase down targets around 250 on both occasions. Moreover, Dhoni’s rotation policy for the senior members of the squad had attracted flak from Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir publicly.
The mood in and around the team reeked of gloom and dissatisfaction. Under such a timid setting, chasing 321 in less than 40 overs looked too much of an ask off India’s out-of-steam batting order.
Entry, Virat Kohli.
Both Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar had provided the necessary impetus to the innings before returning to the pavilion. Kohli came to the middle with the scoreboard reading 86/2. Gambhir looked good at the other end, and the two Delhi-men began going about their business beautifully.
The regular Indian fan was reminded of the final of ICC World Cup 2011 when these very men had steadied the ship after two quick blows to their team. Today though, it wasn’t about steadying the ship. It was about rocking the ship, about cascading it through rampant waters and steering it to its destination, not on time, but before it.
Kohli did just that.
“Malinga is a lethal weaon to have in your side, both at the start and towards the end (of the innings),” the commentator was saying, as Kohli replaced Tendulkar on the striker’s end.
Malinga to Kohli, first ball: Kohli flicks the ball to the boundary; it darts against the ropes with rocket-speed.
While the determination was back in his eyes, the desperation was nowhere to be found this time around. With Dhoni-like calm, the 23-year-old quickly reached 21 off 20 deliveries, and did so with a sumptuous drive through the covers. Soon thereafter, he used his feet to loft the ball to a mind-numbing six over the same angle.
He reached his 50 in 44 balls and India’s total read 178/2. He barely noticed the former and focused on augmenting the latter.
Malinga was brought back into the attack as India needed 95 from 10 overs. Gambhir was dismissed, run-out (again), for a well-made 63. The ever-ebullient Suresh Raina was Kohli’s new partner on the crease.
Again, Kohli barely noticed.
He clobbered Malinga over mid-on for a shot that not only swapped the momentum of the match, but plastered a concerned look on the 11 Sri Lankan faces on the field.
The Malinga-onslaught began.
Kohli looked in imperious touch as he started accumulating runs on both sides of the wicket. What set this innings apart was that he garnered a huge chunk of his runs behind the wicket, and consistently flicked deliveries down to fine-leg.
The most productive area for him though, was the cow corner. It fetched him 32 percent of his runs and he kept conjuring magic between the fielders at long-on and deep mid-wicket throughout the match.
The panther-fast outfield helped India’s cause, but Kohli looked like he could take on the deadliest of bowlers on the fiercest pitch with the slowest outfield that day.
He refused to pause even as he reached his 90s. At 98, he sprinted to a double off Malinga (who else?) and reached a career-defining century. The ball was a middle stump yorker, and Kohli, without a care in the world, flicked it to the leg side effortlessly.
He wasn’t the gullible player who got out at 37 in the World Cup final anymore: he was a monster and the target, which was looking less daunting by the minute, was his ultimate prey.
The shot the match came off the very next delivery after his hundred. Malinga tried to shoot another canon from his shoulder, trying to get that yorker to dart into the stumps. Or into Kohli. Into anything, really.
The RCB batsman waited till the last moment and played a hybrid between a hook and a flick to smoke the ball over deep square-leg. The incessant spinning of the bat in his gloved hands before facing every delivery made sense then: he twisted the bat at the right millisecond, and the ball was deposited in the smack centre of the tumultuous crowd.
India needed 34 off 34 deliveries then.
Kohli still wasn’t done though. The next delivery zoomed past the cover, the one after that raced behind square, the one after that followed suit and the one after that pulsated to the deep square leg boundary.
2, 6, 4, 4, 4, 4.
Mahela Jayawardene looked concerned. Sangakkara looked bewildered. Malinga, as always, settled for the rueful smile. He was realising that the man standing before him was not the boy who let his nerves get the better of him against his IPL franchise Mumbai Indians. The boy had grown up, right before his eyes, on the other side of the wicket.
Raina played one of the best knocks of his career at the other end, and scored 40 off just 24 deliveries. Hardly anyone seemed to take notice though.
All eyes were on Kohli. And on Malinga, who was back to bowl the 37th over of the innings. Kohli played two back-to-back boundaries off the third and fourth ball of the over, and India won the match by 7 wickets. They won with 80 deliveries remaining in the match, and 20 deliveries remaining in the virtual qualifier.
Kohli was no longer a child prodigy. He was no longer just a decent player. He was no longer an under-19 sensation.
He was no longer a victim.
The man elevated himself to another level, and with this colossal innings of 133*, set himself up to become the ultimate chase-master of world cricket. His knock had everything for a youngster to look at, to learn how to break a huge target into smaller, achievable targets.
The most systematic, and yet most beautiful aspect of the innings was how he paced it. Look at how his strike rate developed consistently through its length.
When Kohli’s inexperience made him hit the last ball of the RCB innings into the air, he crouched in disappointment on the pitch. Rahul Dravid was batting at the other end, and immediately went up to console the youngster.
Look at what he has to say about the Indian captain now:
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