Virat Kohli conquered doubts, wagging tongues, and South Africa
Success is contagious, it is infectious, it spurs you on, it motivates you. You are aroused, your walks are no longer saunters, but more like stomps around, and then the sense of accomplishment kicks in, you are human after all, it blinds you, you speak out, these are not mere mutters, you brandish your words, and that veil on your eyes tighten, you stumble… to stutter… you fall… you fail, yes, failure hits you, smacks you when you least expect it, it erodes your belief, you are baffled; there you are lying on your backside, not knowing what to do.
However, this kick in the teeth might act as an antidote; your strength is tested, your belief is questioned, it demands answers, it demands them from you, you can palm them off or take them by the horns and blurt out answers. You know you are down, but yes, you are good enough to bounce back, the fight is not with anyone around, it is the combat you know simmering within, your fight is with yourself; are you good enough to win it?
You are damaged, yes, but now that you have survived, you become dangerous. Virat Kohli wore a desolate look after the abject surrender in Cape Town, the captain was down in the dumps, the batsman did not turn up, those sharp tongues were wagging, they were questioning the team selection, they were questioning the overt use of the term ‘intent’, they were predicting doom. They had given up hope!
What does life teach us? It has often stared us in the face and said that being happy and content at all times is hunky dory, but here is where courage goes missing, but then if we stumble, valor is visible; grab it and you can rise again, look elsewhere and the dirt will accumulate around you!
He has his deficiencies, does Kohli. His technique can be ripped apart on pitches with spice, movement, and bounce; it was all stripped naked in Cape Town. The captain has peeled off runs in familiar circumstances; the nucleus of the Test side, there was a sense of inevitability to each of his centuries, however, when he stepped out in Newlands, unfortunately, there was an inevitability to his dismissals.
The ball was on a length on off stump, and it jumped up. Kohli moved across, poked his bat at it; the ball kissed the edge and nestled in the gloves of Quinton de Kock.
In the second essay, he looked to play his strokes, leaving balls outside the off stump, but his mind was perhaps not in tune with his body, Philander got one to nip back in and pinned Kohli in front. He trudged away even as the questions followed him. India lost, the questions hurtled towards him.
And then Kohli decided to respond, his answers were slightly mellowed down, the tonality was still combative, and when he lost the toss in Centurion, he was not happy. He wanted to bat first, wanted grass on the surface, wanted movement for his bowlers, but what he got was a brown surface and baking sun and only one spinner.
The first innings zoomed by. Ashwin, another player of pedigree, with plenty of crooked eyebrows raised around him, took four wickets, India dismissed the hosts for 335, the score was not a colossal one, but it was big enough to challenge a scarred Indian batting lineup.
KL Rahul and Murali Vijay looked solid. The track was more Indian than South African and they strolled away to 28, before pressing the self-destruct button again. Rahul perished trying to force the issue, Pujara ran himself out. All that talk about showing ‘intent’ forcing him to take a suicidal run.
28 for no loss became 28 for 2. Deja Vu All Over Again.
Centurion was buzzing and out walked that man. Virat Kohli marched in, the crowd on the grass banks had chucked aside their glasses of beer and were now baying for his blood. It was a cauldron, a theatre; it was everything Kohli revels in, it was everything India did not want at the moment.
For all his indecisiveness on spruced up wickets, Kohli’s temperament on wickets which suit him is as solid as a monk, he is zen who looks to be blinking on the outside, but is stagnant like a still pond on the inside.
Front foot was right out, to the pitch of the ball, the bat coming down straight. That ball zipped through the covers, scorching the grass along the way. Wait, has Kohli conquered the demons?
The joy of that drive was screaming out, wanting to be heard over all the pain of Cape Town; it was muffled, but it was floating around.
South Africa’s battery of fast bowlers kept pitching it on a length around fourth and fifth stump, Kohli took a stride, gauged the length, and either drove or left. And then they tried the in-ducker, the captain deciphered it, stayed put and out came the bottom hand, out came that flick, and there went that ball to the mid-wicket fence.
The muffled voice was gaining steam, Kohli’s strides were becoming more prudent.
And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.
— Haruki Murakami
Cape Town was a storm, make no mistake about it. Centurion was the first few strides towards salvation, Kohli offered a bat, the ball pinged off the bat, those very balls that had consumed him on a green surface. South Africa were now beginning to look worried.
"The way Virat is playing it is totally a different game," Ishant Sharma said after the day’s play.
When the day ended, Kohli was at 85, his strike rate was 65.38 on a surface where everyone else, including a certain AB de Villiers, struggled.
However, India were still not out of the woods, they lost three wickets in the final phase of the day, even as Kohli looked on from the non-striker’s end. For all of the 130 deliveries faced on the day, he looked in control, but yet his team were stuttering.
As Day 3 dawned on us, the sun baked down, with India 183 for 5. Hardik Pandya was shuffling all over the place but looked largely untroubled.
He soon suffered a brain fade, ran down the pitch. Kohli sent him back, but he took one more stride and then turned back, reached his ground, giggled too, but then the third umpire intervened. Pandya’s bat was in the air, his foot was not grounded, he was out, Kohli was furious!
This came after a moment of great self-pride for Kohli. He edged Lungi Ngidi and the ball flew past a vacant gully. He then unleashed a beautiful drive down the ground, took a three, and then sped across for a single. There came the century, there came the leap, there came the volleys of expletives, there came Virat Kohli; there came the century, there came the self-belief, there came déjà vu, this one was soothing for India.
Ashwin walked in, encountered a barrage of hostile bouncers, few knocked him too, his uneasiness was palpable, but he conjured self-belief and decided to play his strokes; his only mode of survival was playing his shots, but he survived and scored runs.
South Africa could have been forgiven for harbouring hopes of taking a lead upwards of 100 runs, but Kohli had by then flicked a switch, that switch which has made him a run-scoring machine in ODIs. The entire scenario was more like a game in coloured clothing for him, he pushed the ball in the gaps, ran hard, the ‘intent’ was profound, it was visible, India were roaring back into the contest.
Ashwin left as soon as the second new ball arrived. Shami edged a nasty short one to the keeper, Ishant blocked, looked solid while Kohli at the other end was in command. He was playing the field, he was playing the ball, he was playing for his own sake, he was playing for his partner, he was playing for India’s pride.
150 came by, Kohli raised his bat, Ishant departed, Bumrah was nailed on the helmet, and Kohli now looked rattled at the other end. He decided to press the accelerator even more, alas his attempted lofted drive found AB de Villiers at deep mid-wicket!
It was an epic. As the captain walked away, he took off his helmet and sucked in few deep breaths. The visitors came over to shake his hand, he had conjured his greatness when the others looked elsewhere.
Now, despite all his brilliance, Kohli is misunderstood. In the largely middle-class Indian society, his brashness and jauntiness are often viewed as haughty. Kohli keeps getting pushed to a corner after every failure.
However, he keeps rising. His belief has simmered through, and perhaps he has understood that the fact he is misunderstood is perhaps because he is great, for somewhere down the line this statement makes sense: ‘until you're ready to look foolish, you'll never have the possibility of being great’.