The end of the Age of Kohli: Rudraneil Sengupta writes on an exceptional leader
The former captain, now retired from Tests, didn’t just lead, rack up the runs, and win. He altered the DNA of the Indian team.
Virat Kohli’s retirement from Tests, which he announced this week, was sudden, but not really a surprise. The 36-year-old had been struggling in his favoured whites for some years and, given his extreme commitment to ironing out flaws, he must have reached the inevitable conclusion that his dip in form was not, in fact, a dip but a permanent loss.
He previously announced his retirement from T20 Internationals after lifting the 2024 T20 World Cup trophy, and even though he has not officially quit One-Day Internationals, given the minimal importance accorded to the format, it seems likely that we will never see Kohli represent India again.
Inarguably, he walks away a legend of the game, a man who has won everything and done all there is to be done in cricket. He has been a part of two World Cup triumphs (ODI and T20I), has racked up a mountain of runs that put him among the top batters in the history of the game, delivered blistering catches and some feline fielding, been India captain across Tests, ODIs and T20s, raising the team to the status of No 1 Test side in his time at the helm.
But there is more to him than these numbers. As player and captain, Kohli did something that went beyond runs and trophies: he altered the DNA of the team, and with it, the course of Indian cricket. He did this in his inimitable way, leading by example.
The first big change he wrought was simple but profound: for most of his time on the team, he was its fittest player. As captain, he pushed hard to ensure that other players fell in line with his fitness philosophy. Indian cricket was never known for its athleticism, or the strength and conditioning of its men — until the Age of Kohli. He brought with him Olympic lifts and Nordic curls, plyometric jumps and cold plunges, heart-rate monitors and highly tailored diets.
The second change — the psychological shift — warrants a carefully researched book but, in a nutshell, he taught the Indian cricket team to charge into a fight instead of waiting for the fight to come to them. When was the last time we had a cricketer who wore his heart on his sleeve as Kohli did? Who was this candid (and undiplomatic)? Who could send opponents over the edge with such calculated hostility?
What looked, on the surface, like a Delhi man bringing Delhi aggression to the pitch — all the shouting and screaming, cursing, glaring and obscene gesturing — was a tactic that went much deeper.
As New Zealand’s John Wright once told Sourav Ganguly, the great sporting teams, when competing, stay in what is called “f**k-you” mode. The Indian cricket team had never known this mode. They tried to stand up to Australia’s sledging under Ganguly in the early Aughts, but even then used a mind-game oriented, passive-aggressive approach.
With Kohli, a switch was flipped. When it came to a face-off, he bared it all. He never stepped back from a fight. “This team, regardless of whether we are on top or not, we speak,” Kohli once told me. “We take it very well and we give it back even better.
His aggression “comes from my competitiveness, definitely,” he added. “You have to be competitive, no matter what. If you are not competitive in your body language and energy, there’s no point playing the sport and representing your country.”
Kohli taught a generation of Indian cricketers how to do this. Channel the rage. Let the whole stadium know how angry you are. Set the charge and watch stuff explode.
(To reach Rudraneil Sengupta with feedback, email rudraneil@gmail.com)
