Grit and tenacity set Virat Kohli apart
Virat Kohli, a modern cricket icon, scored 30 Test hundreds with an average of 46.8, showcasing exceptional mental toughness and dedication to the format.
Virat Kohli played 123 Tests, he got 30 hundreds and finished with an average of 46.8.
Anyone who has played over 100 Tests is a special player; anyone who scores runs in all parts of the world, as Virat did, is an exceptional player.
Virat , as we know, is one of the biggest brands this sport has seen and he earned that from his cricketing exploits and also from the way he carried himself on the field.
In every way he was a modern-day hero, a role model for young athletes with his six-pack abs, his tattoos and his style of playing cricket. He did not conform to behaving ‘correctly’ on the field... he was there to win and he wasn’t going to let convention come in the way.
But he worshipped Test cricket.
And for a while when Test cricket was really struggling (and will continue to do so) as a format, Virat invested much in it, showing that his heart was in the right place.
He is a very rich sportsman but until the very end he gave his all to Test cricket, the most non-lucrative form of the game.
When Virat the superstar was touching new heights in Test cricket, sometimes I would feel that the format needed him more than the other way round.
Among Indian batting greats, he was, for me, mentally one of the toughest. I know (Sachin) Tendulkar, (Sunil) Gavaskar and (Rahul) Dravid were there too but what he achieved on that England tour in 2018 set him apart in this regard.
In 2014, he averaged 13 with Jimmy Anderson making his life outside the off-stump hell, but in the same setting , with same nemesis ready and waiting for him, and with the Dukes ball swinging even more, he finished up with almost 600 runs at an average of almost 60.
All batters in that series struggled, the second highest run getter only had 349 runs at an average of 38. Virat stood head and shoulders above everyone.
Now this is where the mental toughness comes in; he was not able to solve his issue outside off, but he managed it.
I was just amazed how he just refused to play the drive or poke tentatively outside off to Anderson. He kept leaving , and he did this ball after ball, spell after spell, match after match.
That was an exhibition of batting greatness of a different kind; it was a sportsman showing exceptional restraint and controlling strong natural instincts with an eye on a bigger goal.
It was about not playing the cover drive, his main shot, for at least two Tests before he started playing it more often, that too carefully versus Anderson in the third Test.
That toughness was evident even after his nightmarish tour in 2014.
There was that series in Australia in 2014-15, after England 2014. All eyes were on him , to see how he would bounce back after that kind of trauma in a foreign series.
Well, he got four hundreds, and in an interview said he was disappointed he did not get five.
This was Virat at his peak for me, alongside England 2018.
The volume of runs apart, the way he stood outside the crease and pulled Mitchell Johnson off the front foot towards mid-wicket was breathtaking.
He also became India’s first big-name batter who openly gave it back to the Australians on the field. He got under their skin, needled them, made them angry -- in the process I am guessing he too felt the same emotion.
That somehow got the best out of Virat. He just loved a fight, didn’t he?
India now had a warrior who was very demonstrative in his battles and the new generation loved him for it, especially when he gave it back to the Aussies; he wasn’t into covert aggression.
Unfortunately, after 2018 his Test run was not as smooth. Pitches in India became more and more treacherous, so he did not get the chance that batters of earlier generations did, to plunder some easy Test runs at home. He wasn’t a great batter on turning Indian pitches at that stage of his career.
The decision to quit Test cricket must not have been easy, I wonder if in some way the constant effort to find a solution to his problems outside off has taken its toll.
Not once did I get the impression that he wasn’t trying to plug that massive hole in his defensive game; try and try he did but in the end, as we saw in Australia when he got out right at the end of the series chasing a delivery outside the off-stump, his reaction was not of disappointment but of resignation.
Thirty Test hundreds is a huge achievement and only a guy who cares for Test cricket can achieve it. Virat cared for Test cricket.
I am not sure how many superstars will do the same in the future.
Virat Kohli may well be the last.
