IPL 2019: Virat Kohli, and the Eden crowd that stood up to applaud

Virat Kohli walks out to bat at the Eden Gardens. He trudges down the stairway of the Royal Challengers Bangalore dressing room, twirling his bat in his muscular arms, alongside wicketkeeper-batsman-cum-pocket-dynamite Parthiv Patel.

However, his eyes don't exude the fire we are so used to seeing. His body doesn't ooze the panache we so enjoy watching. The determination is still there, but it has perhaps gone into meek existence in a remote corner of his heart, hardened by back-to-back losses and underperformances.

He isn't fuming inside, but perhaps he is burning. Yet, he has to come out to bat, and bat well for his team.

He takes his guard at the crease and punches gloves with his opening partner. Kohli looks towards the skies, and utters a prayer that only he knows of. Flashback to 2016.

2016 was the year when the Royal Challengers Bangalore found themselves glued to the bottom of the Points Table, depressingly unable to get a move on in the world's most lucrative T20 league.

They were losing matches home and away and looked set to claim the wooden spoon for the second time in their history. Fans, pundits, and the management lost belief in them, as the IPL's most decorated team required six wins from their last eight matches to qualify for the playoffs.

But one man didn't lose belief. One man refused to believe that RCB's hopes had been all but quashed, and the best they could hope for was to come out the next season and let their fans thump their chests in pride.

One man refused to believe that this squad of 20 did not have the skills, that they did not have the prowess to come out of the quicksand that this stage of the season was and prove their doubters wrong.

Or perhaps he did, and that's why he took it upon himself to bludgeon them to all corners of the park, and eventually make 973 runs across 16 matches taking them agonizingly close to a maiden IPL title, falling short only in the Final. Number 18 was etched on the back of his jersey, and beneath it, in imperial gold the name: Virat.

Kohli batted like a man possessed that season, making an unprecedented four centuries, as he cut, drove and flicked his way to an endless array of accolades and encomiums. It was the year when Virat Kohli wasn't just sublime; he was divine.

He was protecting the entire RCB team under his wings like a mother eagle and keeping the hopes of thousands of Bangaloreans alive. For the state of Karnataka that year, he was God.

Three years down the line, RCB find themselves in an even worse scenario. With eight matches done and just a solitary victory in the account, RCB look set for a final-place finish, and the prospect of making the playoffs is no more a talking point. To have the slightest of hope, they need to win all their remaining six fixtures and hope for some other results to go their way. RCB look down and out.

And so does Kohli, if his emotional message to his fans via Twitter is anything to go by: "I've taken some time to do this, but we could not pull our weight this season and we're not very proud of how this season went for us.

"We're deeply hurt by how we've played and we're sorry for not living up to the expectations all the fans had of us. Having said that, we understand that this is part of life; you cannot always get what you want, and it's up to the players to understand what to do next season. All of us really want to turn things around next year."

An endless streak of disappointments had perhaps seen Kohli become a defeatist, at least when he dons the red-and-gold jersey. Very few things have gone RCB's way this season, including his personal form, and their soporific bowling attack. But Kohli needs to believe, or as he says, 'enjoy his cricket', notwithstanding whether his side is winning or losing.

Let down, downcast, defeated: Virat looks on in disbelief as his batsmen collapse against CSK

Kohli receives a jolt from his chain of thoughts as he pokes at an innocuous delivery from Harry Gurney. He's playing away from his body, albeit with soft hands, and the edge falls short of first slip. Kohli has his heart in his mouth. Focus, he tells himself.

He walks down the track and takes his time to rejig, recollecting and regrouping his thoughts. He presses the pitch with his bat, as Patel walks in from the other end and punches gloves with his skipper. Kohli is ready to go.

Focus. The next ball is a loose delivery on leg-stump, and the prototypical Virat Kohli flick shot comes out, whipping the ball with insatiable fury, sending it sailing to the boundary. Silence envelopes the Eden Gardens, like a macabre portent. Virat Kohli is back in the zone.

But he's struggling to time the ball. The usual flamboyance is not there, and he has played and missed as many as nine balls. The wicket appears two-paced when Virat's batting, but Moeen Ali is teeing off at the other end, striking Kuldeep Yadav for 27 runs in an over. Nevertheless, Kohli is struggling. Never have we seen him so downcast; it's such a saddening sight. Perhaps the ghosts of this season are still haunting him.

Virat's mind is racing. 2016, the Eden Gardens. RCB are up against KKR, on a beauty of a batting track. With 183 runs to get from 20 overs and victory imperative for a playoff berth, Kohli is struggling. And he's perhaps perturbed, as he's on the back of capping off a utopian IPL summer with his franchise.

But he grinds, toils, and pinches those ones and twos with Chris Gayle (49) hitting the ball into the gaps. Slowly, steadily, he finds comfort and anchors the chase with AB de Villiers (53) to finish not out on 75, taking RCB to victory. He reminisces how he'd fallen into de Villiers' arms after that victory, which was the harbinger of a winning streak.

A fresh lease of life lights up in Kohli, as his mind goes back to 2016. 2016 was the year when he was in an utterly cluttered mind space. Morale-crunching defeats in the ICC WT20, and turbulent times with long-time girlfriend Anushka Sharma had seen him in a spot of bother for a brief period of time.

And then the IPL followed, and RCB were drowning in the Indian Ocean, with no resources, no may-day calls, and he being one of the few who could swim. But then they came back, owing to sheer resilience, and a never-say-die attitude that looks at life in the eye and says, 'try me'.

Somehow, his eyes began opening up bigger and wider, after he'd crawled his way to 50 off 40.

After Moeen Ali departs, Kohli begins to unleash the beast. It is almost as if he has been resurrected, almost as if the real Kohli has been reborn. What follows is a batting masterclass.

First, a classic Kohli square drive comes out, as he digs out a wide yorker from Gurney and threads it between point and gully. The sort of shot you see and just say 'wow'. The next ball is a full toss; Kohli clears his front leg and goes downtown. The back lift is scrumptious, and the swing of the bat delicious. RCB are getting into the slog overs, and looks like their skipper is in the mood.

Then Sunil Narine comes in, and keeps going out. It's a short ball spinning into his body, as Kohli gets into position early to thud it over deep midwicket. All bottom hand on that one. Amidst all the bludgeoning, he's also finding room for placement - an overpitched delivery from Prasidh Krishna is driven through the covers for four, as Kohli holds his pose for the cameramen. What a legend!

Caution, followed by aggression. Kohli's favourite words in professional sport are being displayed as he begins to shift gears

As he plays the flick to cow-corner, and the fielder messes it up to give RCB a boundary, Kohli is looking on in anticipation. He is looking on with fire in his eyes and panache in his body. And then he runs, runs to the other end of the pitch, leaps up in the air, and lets out a cornucopia of emotions.

The post-captaincy Kohli has known to be a more equanimous player, a batsman who doesn't fiddle with his middle finger or lash out at journalists. But this was the Kohli we'd seen in 2012, as a young turk on his first tour to Australia, punching the air in delight and screaming out loud in aggression.

He is not delighted; he is ecstatic. He is not mirthful; he is euphoric. He is not celebrating; he is making a statement. He's wearing his heart on his sleeve as he cries, "come on!", as he had done years ago, much to the wrath of his opponents when he was a tyro in a team of legends. Today he himself is one, but he doesn't care. This innings was an emotional roller coaster for him, one that flooded him with memories of his past.

As he walks back to the pavilion, caught in the deep by Shubman Gill for a scintillating 100 off 58 balls, he notices something weird - something recherché. The Eden crowd stands up in adulation, in respect for the gem they had witnessed.

This was the same crowd that had booed him off the ground in 2012, after he was involved in a heated altercation with KKR skipper Gautam Gambhir. Today, they stand up for him, with their hands going clap-clap, giving their national treasure a standing ovation. Kohli smiles - for that is all he can do - and raises his bat in acknowledgment.

An emotional Kohli raises his bat in acknowledgment

The self-belief that a single man can induce in a team with a superman rescue act in times of a crisis is incomprehensible. History has recorded that, and engraved such instances in golden letters - much like Kapil Dev's 175 at the 1983 WC that saw India lifting its maiden title.

Whether or not RCB will be a different team, also bolstered by the addition of the legendary Dale Steyn, remains to be seen. But two things are for sure at this point in time: is Virat Kohli back in form? Yes, he is. Is he going to yield to the experts asking him to rest from the IPL? No, he isn't.