Virat Kohli - Indian cricket's white knight

Virat Kohli

A thunderous applause had become concomitant with the fall of a couple of wickets, the swansong of an Indian first drop for almost an eternity. An atmosphere of hebetude would pave way for an arena of effulgence, as the nation would brace itself to rapturously welcome its grandest of champions.

Sachin Tendulkar’s winsome grandeur has become a thing of the past as is his slick and suave persona on the field. Pages have been penned on India’s greatest apotheosis of excellence, the most sesquipedalian of orators have sung hymns of the little genius’s glory, so reiterating and repeating facts would be a cliché.

The Tendulkar saga is intended as a prologue; a preface to the perverse exaltation of a young colt, en route to the corridors of fame. The guardian of a master’s legacy, fast scripting one of his own. Yes, indeed, it is Virat Kohli I’m talking about. Indian cricket’s white knight.

A teen sensation landed on a few bucks in the inaugural IPL season on the back of skippering a bunch of young guns to a World Cup victory. The sanguine Indian under 19 captain had made his mark and was battle ready to lock shoulders with the big boys in the business. The saturnine debut he had on the international arena in August 2008 was hardly an indication of the storm ahead.

Kohli warmed benches, donned the bartender’s hat by carrying drinks, but remained a spark with the potential of blowing into a rampageous, deadly flame. Those were the days, when Virat was lost in the circumambient ocean of batting legends, but remained a dark horse whose glimpses of greatness in the past offered glimpses of the glory the future had in store. Possessing talent in abundance, truckloads of skill and top notch temperament, Kohli was a flower destined to blossom and not stay put, tight in a bud.

If England 2011 was dismissed as a one off debacle, the following Australian summer turned out to be a vicious nightmare for the men in blue. Mercilessly slaughtered, the Indians returned battered and bruised, victims of a 4-0 whitewash. The batting looked a spent force, high on star value but low on substance. Intransigence wouldn’t do the trick. The fab four’s finesse had run its course. Reality prevailed. An era had ended.

Amidst all these ruins, the Bellerive Oval in Hobart became a stage of dreams witnessing the astuteness and truculence of the young Kohli. As the only solace in an otherwise excruciating and odious voyage, it was Virat Kohli’s ton which stood out for its vivacity. The knock raised hopes of rebuilding a fallen empire from the rubble.

Finally dawned the epiphany, when the boy became the man. Authority was stamped with extreme audacity, leaving the planet to digest the verity of unearthing an astonishing prodigy.

And with big bucks accompanied the paraphernalia which has been the bane of many an overnight star. Tattooed arms and funky hairdos became Virat’s identity not mentioning a horde of female fan following. The lone survivor in the Australian massacre had become a national heart throb. Kohli’s brand value rocketed as did his sex appeal amidst worshippers worldwide.

What separates champions from the rest is the fact that they stand out as the purple cow. They deliver in crunch situations, bailing out the side with astonishing dexterity when in dire straits. And they do this again, again and yet again with unmanly consistency. More importantly, they shield themselves from the frenzy in a cricket mad nation like India, where the God supplants the man in the case of cricketers, who are worshipped and not adored.

If Virat had to drive home the point that he wasn’t one of those overnight sparks of excellence which fizzed out in a wink, he needed to stand his ground, rooted with firmness. And true to his plucky nature, he decided to show that he was much more than tawdry tattoos and trash talk on the field. Training harder to extend his purple patch into a string of awe inspiring performances, Kohli blew the conch proclaiming that he is more boom than bust. That his bite is better than his bark.

The wheel of sport spins and old cogs get replaced by new ones. The brash, bad and boisterous kid of Indian cricket has established himself as the batting’s bacon. A head on his shoulders with ounces of maturity beyond his ‘immature’ demeanour, Kohli reads the game like a book. His booming drives are as adept as his sublime backfoot punches. Add to these credentials a safe pair of hands in a team where abysmal fielders outnumber the agile ones; you have class, glamour and substance in a single package.

When in the mood Kohli rapines oppositions, carving sides and carting bowlers with a fiery disdain. As Martin Crowe rightly mentioned, Kohli exudes “the intensity of Rahul Dravid, the audacity of Sehwag and the extraordinary range of Tendulkar”.

With the willow, Virat sees himself as the David to many a Goliath and pictures the twenty two yards as a battlefield where no love is lost. Never shying away from a verbal battle, the world has witnessed cricketing action transforming into marketplace outrage when this angry young man is in the thick of things.

With no irreverence to what has ever been categorised as a gentleman’s game, it is characters like Kohli who make cricket what it is. They are appurtenant to the game for the simple reason that the cricketing world would be poorer if the sport becomes an ensemble of self-effacing martinets. They lend cricket the flair, inject energy, imbue enthusiasm and add a lion’s share to the glitterati of the game.