Virat Kohli – The man who romances pressure

Virat walks with the swagger which seems like an antique, gift-wrapped and sent to him by a West Indian called Sir Vivian Richards. Like Sir Viv, it is as if Kohli has multiple X-Men hiding within him and he unleashes each one based on the situation. Except he has a lot of tattoos on his hand, pays too much attention to the crowd and celebrates way too much, something the West Indian legend never really excessively indulged in.

Kohli struts as if he owns the field and emotes like he was a Gladiator paid to perform, whether it is with the bat or on the field or in the way he expressed his emotions. He is an oxymoron within himself. It belies all logic as to how a man who emotes so much, expresses so much and gets angry so often, like an anti-thesis of his captain of long can be so calm and composed with a bat in hand.

It is like the Kohli with the bat simply says, ‘Now that I have a bat in hand, I can let it do all the talking for me.’ That is exactly what he does.

From the time, he set up a World Cup 2011 win with a vital partnership with Gautam Gambhir, under stunning pressure, Kohli has come a long way. He was once No.2 to Rohit Sharma, then the darling of everyone’s eye, a man who showed off his skills in the CB Series that India won down under in the previous decade. But, Kohli went about his business, the way he does now – like a man who knows the target and is absolutely ominous, almost like a viper, when the target is so clear.

Kohli’s numbers

Kohli’s numbers are phenomenal anywhere.

• In 41 Tests, he averages 44 and has racked up 11 centuries already, quite a few down under. He has 23 fifty plus scores in 72 innings, having played everywhere in the world. India could take that with both hands after the retirement of all its bigwigs.
• In the shorter formats of the game though, he is an explosion. In 163 ODI innings, he has an average of 51.51 while still maintaining a strike-rate of 89.97. 7212 runs with 25 centuries and 36 half-centuries – a fifty plus score every three innings – is something most cricketers dream of achieving. Kohli is only 27 and is only shifting to fourth gear.
• We don’t even know how many gears he has. Is it even possible to better those numbers which look as if the God of War, Mars, came down with a bat in hand and a strut to accompany him? It is. Kohli while chasing in ODIs is even better.
• Kohli in T20Is, another advancement. A different model. An extra stroke, maybe an extra gear. In T20Is Kohli has 1446 runs in 37 innings with 10 not-outs. He has played a lot less than many New Zealanders and Australians. Yet, he has 14 half-centuries, the one in Eden Gardens against Pakistan in the 2016 T20 World Cup, putting him at the acme of the list.
• He averages 53.55 in T20 games – a format where people were supposed to throw their bats around and hence 25 translated to being exceptionally consistent. He does that with a strike-rate of 132.41. That has to be MVP of World T20 XI. Simple.

Kohli in ODI chases

Virat Kohli is top of the pile in averages for any batsman over 20 innings in ODI chases.

Virat Kohli has an average of 61.22 in ODIs while chasing

• Kohli has scored 4408 runs with 19 not-outs in 91 innings for an average of 61.22. AB de Villiers is a distant second at 57.75 with 3812 runs in the same number of innings. MS Dhoni averages 51 in 117 innings and the much-maligned Shane Watson is fifth with an average of 52.80. That begs us the question as to who is more influential in wins.
• Kohli is third in terms of average in wins. He averages 83.97 just behind Bevan who averaged 86.25. Dhoni tops the list with a whopping average of 105.77. Funnily, Kohli has already scored 3275 runs in chases with Dhoni scoring 2327 runs in 60 innings. Dhoni the finisher has benefited quite a bit from some of Kohli’s innings.
• This is the most phenomenal of all numbers. Kohli has 15 centuries in chases. He is just 2 short of Sachin Tendulkar’s 17 second innings centuries. Kohli’s have come in 91 innings. Sachin’s have come in 232, a lot of them a position above Kohli’s No.3. T Dilshan and Chris Gayle have 11, S Jayasuriya and Saeed Anwar had 10 and the closest active cricketer after that is AB de Villiers with 7.
• The numbers are still of a cricketer who is blooming, through all the early and sometimes unfair criticism, all the analysis deserved by the best batsman of a batting team over a period of more than three years and all the ups, downs and changes in the team. Given how the man has pushed the proverbial boundaries, it is hard to imagine where he will end!

Kohli in T20Is

Words have been invented to describe Virat Kohli in T20Is – antithesis, atypical, unfazed. Kohli treats T20 like it is Tests played in his backyard – no rush, no panic, no nerves – pure insouciance that shapes up into artistry, steely artistry.

The way he steered India twice in two weeks against their cricketing nemesis – once from 8 for 3 with a brilliant 49 and then from 23 for 3 in a high pressure, must-win T20 World Cup game with an unbeaten 55 show it all. That innings demonstrates everything you needed to understand about Kohli – a genius with a velvety hand, a heart of steel and an extremely calculative mind – the exact combination of adjectives for warlike conditions.

Kohli plays exquisite cover drives when the situation leads batsmen to slog, he goes back and punches the ball through backward point when batsmen want to biff the ball down the ground and he flicks the ball effortlessly from anywhere between square leg to long on when most batsmen cannot even think clearly.

• Kohli averages 53.55 in T20Is having played 1446 runs in 37 innings. For anyone who has played at least 10 innings and has scored at least 500 T20I runs, Aaron Finch is a distant second with an average of 39.82. Joe Root, England’s prodigy has an average of 39.66 in 14 innings. Faf du Plessis has an average of 39 in 33 innings.
• In terms of runs, Kohli’s 1446 in all T20Is puts him at 10th but the highest is just 2140 by Brendon McCullum.
• Kohli broke the record for most fifties when he scored the unbeaten 55 to take India to victory against Pakistan at Eden Gardens. Kohli has 14 half-centuries. In terms of fifty-plus scores, he is tied with Dilshan who has 13 fifties and a century. McCullum and Gayle have 13 half-centuries and 2 centuries each.
• Things get even better when you look at Kohli’s record in T20I chases. He averages a whopping 83.60. That is 31 better than the next highest – 52.62 of Michael Hussey. 31 – That in itself is a massive average in T20Is. MS Dhoni is third with an average of 46.
• In chases, Kohli has 836 runs in 18 innings with 9 half-centuries. Only McCullum (1006), Guptill (882) and David Warner (867) have more runs in chases, but Guptill has the highest average of them all – 35.28.
• Of any batsman who has been part of at least 10 successful T20Is, Kohli has the highest average – 70.86.
• Of any batsman who has been part of at least 5 successful chases in T20Is, Kohli has the third highest average – 109 in 14 innings with 655 runs. Hussey averages 255 in 6 innings with 255 runs and Bailey averages 112 in 6 innings with just 112 runs. Kohli bats at No.3. Sometimes he walks in, in the first over.

Conclusion

Numbers are like make-up. You can use them to embellish a fact, hype up the rhetoric, make things a little better-looking than what they are. At the end of the day though, numbers need a strong truth, an undeniable truth. In many ways, numbers in chases tell you everything you need to know about the men in need, the men indeed.

Virat Kohli, a man of average height and average build, a man who was considered a boy not long ago, a man who expresses emotions like a 12-year-old even after he turned captain. Virat Kohli is the go-to player, when the team needs someone to stand up and take them to the shore.

Virat Kohli, a man who romances toughness, writes paeans for difficulties, sings odes for tough situations. Virat Kohli, the man who indulges in the tough, the impossible!