Virat Kohli: Dragon, Leader, Champion

Virat – the giant – Kohli

Brash. Cocky. Arrogant. Humble. Dedicated. Perfectionist. Are we talking about the same person? Surely I jest.

I don’t. Chap called Virat Kohli. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. If not, keep your eyes peeled and ears to the ground because in the coming few weeks he is going to dominate the English bowling attack like a Dutch uncle.

If I’m being honest, this unwavering, blind trust reminiscent of a child thinking of a parent wasn’t always there. Perhaps it’s because like so many of my generation, I was spoiled rotten by watching one Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. I realize now that it is unfair to compare Kohli to Tendulkar for 2 reasons, the first being that Tendulkar was like Brett Hart, the excellence of execution, the best there is, the best there was and the best there ever will be. He wasn’t a one in a million or once in a generation player, he was a once in a sport type of player.

The second and more pertinent reason is that it takes away from the fact that Virat Kohli is pretty damn good himself. Somewhere along the way, he went from being a promising young batsman to this remorseless, calculating run machine. If the Terminator franchise hadn’t begun years ago, it would not be completely unrealistic to believe that Kohli was used as a prototype while conceptualizing the film.

If Tendulkar embodied the India of the 90s, Kohli is indubitably the walking, talking image of the India of today. It is reflected as much in his batting style; not only does he not back down, he makes it abundantly clear that he is coming after you and more oft than not he will get you. It is confident, effervescent and uber-cool, but there is also a clinical precision to it. He sizes up length a fraction of a second better than most, and seems to have more shots in his repertoire than a particularly enthusiastic photographer.

The watershed moment in Kohli’s career

His transformation began on the ill-fated tour of Australia. I’m ashamed to say that after the Sydney Test, I was of the opinion that if Kohli finished the Test leg of the tour without spilling drinks on the batsmen in the middle, it would be some achievement. In a floundering batting line-up full of my heroes, I did what any self-respecting fickle person does and blamed the new guy.

What happened next is testament to both the ability he possesses and the amount of hard work he puts into improving himself. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Not only did he look a different player, he looked the best player. A 75 was followed by a maiden Test century at Adelaide, and he had proved to everyone that when the going gets tough Virat Kohli gets going. It wasn’t the first time he had turned a weakness into a strength, when he first started playing he seemed allergic to the off side, now his cover drive is among the crispest and most distinctive in the game. In that sense, it wasn’t really a breakthrough, just a continuation of what he has done his entire career; defy expectations and then proceed to raise them.

Kohli never looked back after the 2011/12 Australia tour

He has an important role to play in this batting line-up. He has always been a leader, that much is evident in how he carries himself on the field. It’s not about fashion, but passion. Virat Kohli has both. He swaggers onto the field as if it is his birthright, arrogantly dismisses the ball from his presence as if it is the most natural thing in the world and destroys bowling attacks like a fire breathing dragon. He is both the enforcer and general in an inexperienced line-up. If Pujara is the architect, Kohli is the go-getter who transformed a humble mansion into a domineering skyscraper. Not too shabby.

There are some who will feel that this faith is misplaced, after all he has never played a Test match in England. Can I state to an absolute certainty that he is going to make the English bowlers think that for as long as they can remember they’ve been bowling to Virat Kohli, but it always ends with him running circles around them? Do I know for sure that they couldn’t be more out of his league if they were playing a different sport?

Yes. Yes I can. And I’ll tell you why, it’s what he’s done his whole career.

All he needs to do is keep being Virat Kohli.