It sometimes feels surreal, for the frequency and authority of the whole process makes it too good to be true. India’s Virat Kohli is transcending all boundaries of an athlete’s form, taking his game higher and making it almost unvanquishable with each passing fixture.
Having already broken into the top-10 list of most centuries in international cricket, Kohli has left several legends behind, and now has his eyes on the absolutely cream. Sample this: Sanath Jayasuriya, whom Virat Kohli surpassed to break into the top-10, compiled 42 centuries in a 22-year international career, opening the batting in the majority of the 586 games he played. Kohli has managed to hit 43 tons in just 280 matches, that too in less that nine years!
Yet, for Kohli, the Test batsman, the graduation from limited-overs cricket wasn’t as meteoric. His Test debut came three years after he first played for India, and there were serious doubts about his temperament as a genuine Test batsman.
All of that changed in 2014, when he was pushed into the captaincy cauldron after MS Dhoni’s sudden departure. As a captain, his numbers have been staggering: in 23 Tests, he has scored nine centuries at an astonishing average of 68.08. This includes his recent purple patch, where he has scored four double hundreds in four consecutive series, the first man to do so.
Post his record-breaking double ton, Kohli spoke to BCCI about his newfound hunger to stay for long at the crease in Tests, which has come primarily from his ability to curb his natural instinct to attack.
“It’s because of captaincy that you go on more than you usually do as a normal batsman. The room for complacency is no more present when you are the captain. I wanted to play longer innings, my first 7-8 100s were not even 120+ scores. After that I made a conscious effort to bat long, control my excitement and not be complacent”.
His fitness has definitely been a huge boost to improve his credentials as a top match-winner. A sudden realisation after IPL 2012 made him completely overhaul his fitness regimen and diet, making him a top-class athlete, possibly one of the fittest cricketers at the moment.
Also read: Virat Kohli sacrificed butter chicken and rolls to become top batsman, says coach
“I have worked on my fitness as well over the years. I feel like I can go on for longer periods now. I don’t feel tired easily, and I definitely don’t get satisfied when I get a Test hundred, which used to be the case before because I used to give too much importance to Test cricket separately. But now I have started to treat it as any other game of cricket, and I have to keep going on as long as my team needs me to”.
The consistency is evident in all three formats of the game: after scoring double hundreds against the Kiwis and Englishmen in Tests, he was back to haunting them in the ODI series that followed. Talking about the consistent run across formats, Kohli said:
“It is more of a mental thing. I don’t necessarily focus on practice and season, because sometimes you don’t get enough time to practice too much, but I think mentally I need to focus - switching to different formats is the need of the hour in today’s cricket and I really want to contribute in all three formats”.
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