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Virat Kohli: The Man, The Myth, And His Incomplete Legend
Follow UsKohli had set his standards so high that he eventually became a victim of his own success, his own mythology of dominance
There are more Gods in India than the population of most nations in the world today. We create mythologies out of our thick, dusty subtropical air like a magician pulling birds out of his hat. So habitual are we with the process that we even start imposing mythologies on other human beings we love. The human gets lost somewhere in that jungle of legends. Only the myth remains. The myth is all that is remembered.
Virat Kohli, whose bat produced not only 9230 runs but also an insurmountable amount of happiness, just said goodbye to Test cricket. Just like the phenomenon mentioned above, he is also a man whose own mythology consumed him. So much so, that his average of 46.85, even after undergoing a Test batting pandemic, feels like a serious underachievement.
But we will not talk about numbers today. We have already done that at many places and have tried to figure out how a 5 feet 9 inch Chole Bhature lover from West Delhi could end his career with at least 10,000 Test runs and a 50-plus average.
We are here to try and remember the making of this ‘man’ in the longest and oldest format of the game, how he became a victim of his own success, and the last unceremonious goodbye which failed to give a closure to anyone who once loved the way his hands extended forward into a cover drive.
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“Test cricket is the real deal. I urge all youngsters and aspiring cricketers to have a vision to play Test cricket. Believe me, nothing Tests you more than playing in those traditional whites. If you want to grow, dream big and make pressure your best friend”
Kohli wrote this on his Instagram profile way back in 2015, when he was arriving at the precipice of his peak in Test cricket. He had already become unrecognisable after undergoing a serious physical transformation. He had given up not only Chole Bhature, but almost everything that a non-athlete 20-something person eats.
And of course, it wasn’t without struggle. There are videos where Kohli confessed that he used to get so hungry some nights that he almost ate his bedsheet. Sacrifices were made, and he was showing the world that he was undergoing all that to ensure he remains his best version on the field. He never was a 'records and numbers' man, but the 10,000 run milestone always appealed to him. You could see the fiery desire to reach there in his eyes when he talked about it.
Test cricket meant that much to him! Even back then, ODIs were where he became the supernova we know him to be today. That innings in Hobart against Sri Lanka and that chase in Jaipur against Australia elevated him to the status of a potential great. However, Kohli still wanted to ace Test cricket. The disastrous 2014 England tour was still at the back of his mind.
That’s where Kohli the man transformed and started working on his Test game. He was building his body and cricketing skills not just to be the best in the present, but also ace the future. Cricketers slow down in their 30s, and hand-eye coordination gets weaker with age. Kohli’s fitness regime and deification of his own body were taking him towards a path where the troubles of an average batter in his 30s wouldn’t have hindered his career.
Forget just 10,000 runs. When the peak of Kohli arrived in Test cricket in 2016 and lasted till 2019, it felt like he might go past Sachin Tendulkar one day. Fans used to talk about him playing late into his 30s, and frankly, you can’t blame them, because Kohli had done everything in his capacity for it to unfold exactly like that.
Only if life had a wish-granting vending machine where you inserted dreams and hopes and got your wish in return…
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“Richard Parker went ahead of me. He stretched his legs and walked along the shore. At the edge of the jungle he stopped. I was certain he was going to look back at me, flatten his ears to his head, growl. That he would bring our relationship to an end in some way. But he just stared ahead into the jungle.”
When the slump arrived in Kohli’s Test career around the pandemic, everyone (including Kohli) would have thought that it was just a phase. After all, this was the same man who aced the 2018 Test tour of England after being at sea against the same bowlers in 2014. This was the same man who hadn’t looked out of form in ODIs since 2013.
Comeback was a question of ‘when’, and not ‘if’. However, as the pandemic progressed, it became a question of ‘what if it doesn’t’, as Kohli averaged 19.33, 28.21 and 26.5 in Test cricket in the three pandemic-affected years of 2020, 2021, and 2022.
His backfoot issues were now the talk of the town. India’s talismanic Test skipper, their best ever till date, was undergoing a serious downfall in the format he loved and advocated the most. And by 2022, his powers were stripped away from him further when the BCCI took away his captaincy.
An era had ended.
Imagine being Kohli here. Imagine how it would have hurt him to see all the efforts he had put into his fitness and game turn to ashes in front of his eyes as he struggled for a comeback. Imagine how powerless he would have felt in front of the forces that were beyond his control on many occasions.
And it wasn’t like he was the only batter that’s struggling. The entire cricketing world was going through a period where batting averages were plummeting like stock prices in a war.
Kohli had set his standards so high that he eventually became a victim of his own success, his own mythology of dominance.
As it turned out, even when he played the last red ball game, which happened to be a Ranji game in his hometown Delhi, fans filled every single seat just to see him. But he never actually growled back the way he used to do after hitting those double hundreds in his peak.
He just stared ahead into a jungle of his own incomplete story.
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“And then Richard Parker, my fierce companion, the terrible one who kept me alive, disappeared forever from my life. I wept like a child. I was weeping because Richard Parker left me so unceremoniously. It broke my heart. But I have to believe there’s more to his eyes than my own reflection reflecting back at me…I suppose at the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go. But what hurts the most, is not taking a moment to say goodbye.”
Of course, there will always be a sadness associated with this retirement. How couldn’t it be?
Kohli's end in Test cricket came unceremoniously. It just took an Instagram post and Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” for him to announce that the dream he showed to millions of cricket fans was now over. The vision he espoused and became a servant of had turned futile.
The fittest cricketer Indian cricket has ever seen ended his Test career at 36 years of age! 10,000 runs remained an Eldorado he never achieved.
And it’s okay to not attach a happy ending to this, because that’s how Kohli’s Test story has been — the incomplete legend of a man who left without saying a proper goodbye.