Joy of batting, art of winning

Virat Kohli was a once-in-a-generation talent. He also turned Team India into a winning machine

Statistics offer only a partial view of sporting greatness. In the case of Virat Kohli, they are likely misleading. After playing 123 Test matches and scoring 9230 runs at an average of 46.85, Kohli has called it a day, leaving a big hole in the batting order, just as India embarks on what is likely to be a tough tour of England. The numbers do not do justice to the pure delight of his batsmanship or the enormous impact he has had on Indian cricket, more so as its most successful Test captain. He was definitely among the greatest batsmen of his generation, and between 2016 and 2019, he was probably the best. Still, his indifferent form since means that his contemporaries Joe Root, Steven Smith, and Kane Williamson are likely to leave the game soon with better career batting records.  

Virat Kohli the batsman is only half the story; Kohli the captain was a transformative figure who reflected his times (PTI)

Kohli’s brilliance made factors such as pitch, weather conditions, and quality of attack irrelevant, as he scored hundreds across the world, just as the greats of the game have done since the first Test match was played in March 1877. On this count, he is up there with India’s best-ever, Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, and Rahul Dravid, though statistically, he is closer to Gundappa Viswanath and VVS Laxman, two middle-order match-winners known for their sublime batting. Kohli was gifted, no doubt, but he went back to the drawing board when challenged by skilled bowlers to rework his craft and fitness — his disciplined, while sublime, batting against the swing and seam of Jimmy Anderson in the English summer of 2018 showcased his resilience.  

But Virat Kohli the batsman is only half the story; Kohli the captain was a transformative figure who reflected his times. If Gavaskar represented the cautious, slow, and safe approach of pre-liberalisation India, and Tendulkar the energy and excitement of a nation on a high-growth path, Kohli was the new India, confident and aggressive in demanding its seat at the global high table. As captain, he was cast in the Sourav Ganguly mould. He declared that he played to win, and always win. If that meant sacrificing an extra batsman for a five-man attack, so be it. It was an exhilarating sight to see Team India in whites dictating terms to the Australians Down Under and the English in England. And the captain, aggression personified in words and gestures, off and on the pitch, led from the front. With 40 wins as captain from 68 outings, he is India’s most successful Test captain; among people who have captained at least 50 Tests, he is third in terms of win percentage, after Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting. This Delhi middle-class boy’s intensity and hunger for success rubbed on a talented team even if Brand Kohli subsumed the contribution of peers such as Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, and Ravichandran Ashwin.

For 14 years, Kohli was an animated, inspiring presence on the field for Team India. It will take a while before it reconciles with his absence, coming in the wake of the retirements of Ashwin and Rohit Sharma. Meanwhile, fans can rewind their memory to recall those exquisite drives, pulls and flicks off legs — and hope he continues to play ODIs, a format he has made his own, and one in which he can rightfully stake his claim as the GOAT.