THE MOUTH THAT ROARS

A look at Virat Kohli — the legend in the making

Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli. Photograph: BCC

What shit news to wake up to. My football club has fired its head coach six games into the season and that ain’t even the worst of it. The first-choice goalkeeper might be sidelined for a small matter of six months. Fuck. What’s next. Come on Cricinfo, give me some fucking good news. Nope. Senwes Park, Potchefstroom might as well have been Cuito Cuanavale, Angola. On a featherbed where the South Africans plundered millions of runs, my country’s batsmen decided it was instead a minefield. I am surprised the South Africans didn’t take the field wearing T-Shirts that said, “Do you even Bat Bro?”. Next. Oh, fantastic. The feature article on the website of one of the leading sports networks in the country (hint: not TSN) read “…it is not unreasonable for Leafs fans to think that they could win a Cup this year and the year after and maybe a good while after that”. It’s ONE game into the season for fucks sake. I know your employer pays you to churn out “opinion” pieces, but at least have some goddamn self-respect or journalistic integrity or whatever before spouting such unforced drivel.

I am sorry, I usually don’t litter my usual gibberish which I pass on as “sports articles” with a litany of F Bombs, but this is more of a glorified blog-post. Read on with no expectations, I offer no promises.

A hair cut wasn’t going to put off my foul mood but unfortunately, it was necessary. So, I started to make my way down to the hair salon (I could say barbershop, but time to class this shit up a bit). But what in the devil’s world was this! People posing in graffiti alleyways and having their pictures taken. The pout, the signature look of the modern Mona Lisa. Yes, the modern world, where Trendsetting Instagram accounts are small businesses. Prince Ferdinand: “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here!”, The Tempest Act I Scene II. Wait, sorry, that took a dark turn. Anyway, yes, the hair salon. I sat down, waited for my turn, got my cut and was outta there. Exactly how I like it. Waiting your turn at the salon is a time honoured tradition that I very much intend to continue. It is one of those things you did with your Dad when you were young. The waiting is part of the package; it may very well be the best part of the package. This is not a fast-food joint. I do not expect to get served under three minutes and twenty seconds. It serves as a much-needed thoughtless alone time amongst the chaos of the rate race we call life. Silence, Sanity, Scissors. Oh, and of course there were dickheads who showed up, took a glance at the waiting area, rolled their eyes and left. Well, fuck you too.

I swear there will be some semblance of a sports article somewhere; we are just not there yet. If you have made it this far, might as well read on. I am kidding, you should go read Conrad Black argue about why he thinks Trump might not be doing that bad of a job. That’s one eloquent son-of-a-bitch.

Rest of the day passed eating Jamaican patties and hearting IG pics with captions such as “Day out with ma Baes #bad&boujee” and “Take me back #beachbum #wheredidsummergo”. Did I not mention I love Instagram? The main course of the day was reserved for the evening. A Trivia Night. Concocted by adults of the modern world to still “hang out”, but not be responsible for the cleaning up after. I arrived at the bar, where next to the restaurant sign that said, please seat yourself, he’s not coming, the highlights of last night’s heavily bombed dating scene were being broadcasted to a crowd of fiery jalapeño-headed millennial females. Perfumed and pretty for false alarms, their stories carbonated the rounds of IPA’s and vodka waters on what appeared to be a very impromptu ladies’ night. OUR TOYS GET UP MORE THAN OUR MEN DO, pressed on a certain Carol, who looked super divorced. Handcuffed to her prenuptial liquor cabinet, she insisted that the only reason it’s called ladies’ night is because of some patriarchal cattle call to increase the ratio of “man vs. other stuff”. I must be in the wrong pub.

Modern feminism. Where kitties order rounds of power and special treatment all at once.

You wanna start a tab?

How much for 5 attacks on masculinity?

Ladies, I shouted, may I have your attention. Let me tell you about how chivalry was the first attempt at feminism. And suddenly, the room melted into white noise as I failed to dodge a flaming piece of silicon. Yup, definitely the wrong pub.

Eventually, after side-stepping a pink-wigged waitress eager to share her recipe for the perfect home brewed dark ale, I found myself on the right floor of the bar. Ah, the smell of intellect in the air, mildly nauseating. I know I’ll never get that corner office, but heck I thought I could at least land that corner table. Nope, my friends (that’s a strong assertion but whatever) had already invaded the table of champions, smack in the middle. Let’s see, a PhD in Molecular Biology. Respect. A professional wine tester. Yes, I kid you not they pay you for that shit. And the “Consultant”, the crown jewel of bullshit mountain. I’ll spare you the colour commentary leading up to the question, I think you have suffered enough in the first nine hundred and thirty-one words.

In One-Day Internationals, who is the fastest player to reach 8,000 runs?

Heads turned towards me in unison. First, I found the choice of milestone rather peculiar. Second, of course I knew the answer. Virat “Muthafu*kin” Kohli.

December, 2006. It was a winter morning none of the players at the Ferozeshah Kotla ground would ever forget. Delhi captain Mithun Manhas got to the ground fifteen minutes earlier than his usual routine, and found Kohli sitting in the corridor outside the dressing room holding his head. “What’s wrong?” inquired Manhas, “I lost my father” the teenager mumbled. Stunned, Manhas looked around to see if there was anyone else around to help him comfort the boy, there was no one. Manhas asked the boy to go home, but his prompt reply was “I want to play.” “Why?” asked Manhas to which the youngster replied: “Sir, the atmosphere at home is heart-breaking. My family and coach also want me to continue with my innings.” The matter-of-fact manner of the answer and his dedication even in his hour of grief left Manhas speechless.

Earlier that morning, Virat had called his coach Mr. Sharma who was in Sydney with his academy team to ask him what he should do. Crying, he disclosed that Delhi were in dire straits. At his wit’s end, Sharma promised to call him back in fifteen minutes. When he called back, all he could come up with was “This is the time to show your character.” “Yes Sir, even I want to bat,” was the reply and the issue was settled. “I did not know the situation of the match, but I knew it was his first Ranji Trophy season, and he needed to play whenever he got the chance” recalled big brother Vikas. “You could say that he did it for our father or whatever, but the fact was, he was more mature after that day.”

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As the news trickled in and word about the tragedy spread to the opposition and the umpires, Virat Kohli made his dramatic entry onto the field to save his side from the embarrassing prospect of following-on against Karnataka. The runs he would make that morning showed no signs of the trauma the eighteen-year-old was going through. Even umpires P.S. Godbole and M.S.S. Ranawat were overwhelmed with emotion when Kohli took strike. Virat radiated such confidence that he inspired his batting comrade Puneet Bisht to score his maiden century (156). And as if there had not been enough drama on the day, Kohli was given out ten runs short of his own century when replays clearly showed the umpire made an error in judgment. He stood at the crease for a moment, crestfallen, and then trudged back to the pavilion in disappointment. He viewed replays of his dismissal in distress and finally broke down in the dressing room. He called coach Sharma for the second time, this time crying about how he missed a century through no fault of his own.

As the battle raged on, Kohli left the ground for the crematorium. Later that day, as Bisht contemplated on what had transpired, he couldn’t help but have mixed feelings. The joy of scoring his maiden century and the pain of Virat’s loss were both playing on his mind, when the phone rang. “Congrats for the century,” said the voice on the other end. It was Virat. Bisht was overwhelmed. His teammate had faced a kind of situation very few people face in life, and only the rare ones manage to brave it the way he did. The boy had grown into a man on that fateful day at the Kotla.

We are told from a very young age that a good person is one who always speaks in a respectful manner. Mind what you say. Don’t raise your voice. Aggression does not take you far. Commentators wax lyrical tunes about days gone by when batsmen remained silent and pointed to the scoreboard as their responses. It was effective and required no emotional engagement. As soon as a batsman opened his mouth, the ancient masters would tell you, he had lost the battle. Kohli’s predecessor, the legendary M.S. Dhoni, quite possibly India’s greatest captain of all time, was the poster-boy diplomat. Matter-of-fact words, soft smile, outlandish only with the bat. But Kohli’s is the mouth that roars. He is a gladiator out to conquer the arena, not a politician out to win hearts at the senate through sugar coated words. There is an inevitability about Kohli, an absence of anxiety that surrounds him when he bats that is quite remarkable. To watch him twirl his bat after a perfect checked cover-drive, or a swivel pull, or a Laxmanian whip, is to watch an artiste twirl his brush or a warrior his sword. His eyes not only blaze, they beckon — beckon the next ball, the next challenge.

Pundits will tell you confrontation cannot be won through verbal bullets. That the only ammunition he can fire when he is at the crease is to make runs. Detractors would tell you he is an agent provocateur of the mouthiest kind, seeking confrontation where there needn’t be any. Critics will question his influence on his teammates. Luckily for us, Virat Kohli doesn’t give a flying fadoodle, about such sentiments. “This is who I am,” he’ll tell you with the deadpan insouciance of Eric Cantona smoking a Gauloises. He is an aggressive batsman and a feisty character, traits that are becoming increasingly less mutually exclusive for top-class players. Asking Kohli to curb his aggression will not help him or Indian cricket. It’s part of his personality. And he is old enough to handle his temperament.

He has turned down a multi-million-dollar endorsement deal with Pepsi because he doesn’t consume their product. Dates a top Bollywood star, and has chiseled his physical appearance to a point where he looks like a compendium of flattering contemporary adjectives. He is the epitome of the body-over-mind revolution that has changed the way Indian cricketers prepare. His training videos are all the rage on Instagram. Kohli represents the brash face of the new India. The loud tattoos. The endless gym selfies. But, it is not vanity that drives him, but his desire to be his absolute best self. His teammates will tell you how boring his diet is, how he would be up all night biting down on bed sheets. He embraces boredom off the field to gain immortality on it. The Delhi boy who doesn’t eat sweets, drink alcohol or indulge in the city’s array of mouthwatering dishes.

Kohli’s relationship with Anushka Sharma has led to near Sachin levels of loopy scrutiny for both. Often when assaulted by the full glare of their fame, celebrities look either abashed or entirely absent, either discomfited by the brouhaha or deaf to it altogether. But with Kohli, you feel there is a sort of hyper-awareness. He knows he is being watched. He knows people like watching him. And he likes that people like it. He does have his limits however. During a training session at Perth at the 2015 World Cup, a visibly irritated Kohli lambasted a journalist he believed had written a disparaging article about his partner. It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, but never let it be said Virat lacks chivalry, even if it might, like a Hardik Pandya over, be a little misdirected!

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He is cocky, of that there is no doubt, but he also knows that it’s performance, not theatrics, which ultimately matter. It is not just talent that keeps you at the top. You must study the opposition, rework your plans and keep refining your game. The unapologetic cult of self-improvement has allowed him to transform himself into one of the fittest cricketers on the planet. It is no co-incidence that he converted three of his four Test hundreds into double-hundreds last year, while also becoming the first player in history to average a staggering 75 across all three international formats. Leading by charisma andexample. Always the team player, after fine tuning minute things about his own technique, footwork and head position, you can often find him standing near the nets as his teammates go through their own preparations. Gloves off, pads still on, hands clasped behind his back, Kohli watches with an intensity only he can, all the while sharing observations and giving suggestions.

He has matured on a personal level too, channeling his earlier impetuousness into a highly effective form of aggression on the field. A doctrine of untrammeled aggression will only get you so far, though, as Kohli pointed out with the sort of brutal frankness that only the truly self-assured can convincingly muster. “They seem to be quite fearless, which is always a good thing,” he said of Morgan’s England. “But at the same time, to be a consistent performer in the ODI format, you need to understand strike rotation as well. You can’t just go in with one sort of momentum.”

Never in my life had I liked any Indian cricketer. Ever. There were good ones, of course, but none of them possessed any of the effortless swagger that oozed off the players from a certain neighbouring country; mortal enemies, archrivals and occasional war date Pakistan. But that would change during the 2014/15 Test Series when India toured Australia. With Dhoni serving a penance for tardiness during the first test, the future monarch was given the keys to the empire on a trial basis. The Aussie media weren’t going to let this delicious opportunity pass, and they absolutely ripped into Kohli. They mocked his temper, saying that coaches don’t like players getting into poor behavioral states that affect their play negatively. They dismissed his reactions as “overwrought” and “dumb”, pointing to the fact that it makes him vulnerable as his concentration veers away from the precise task of dealing with the ferocious Australian pace battery. When he got stung by a Mitchell Johnson return throw, they trolled him for “putting on a show and collapsing in a heap that would make any Serie A striker proud.” They ran a narrative of how Kohli will be swallowed up by his own inner demons — demons that had a penchant for being expressed verbally.

But behind all that bravado was genuine fear. Deep down they knew this was no ordinary foe. And every single time they knocked him down, Virat Kohli would spring back up like a Phoenix and bark back. He marshalled his chess pieces with panache, and even operated as a peacemaker, physically coming between his teammates and the equally feisty David Warner. Defending his teammates came naturally, but as a captain he also understood the importance of communicating a need for discipline. Half way through day five, India was on course for a famous victory. And of course, he wasn’t denied his signature moment. A hush fell over the ground as a Johnson thunderbolt hit Kohli flush on the emblem of his helmet. The Australian fielders showed genuine concern and walked up to him to check his well-being. The umpires wanted to give him some extra time in case he needed to summon the physio. All this was played out in the backdrop of some tragic recent events. Only a couple of weeks earlier, Phillip Hughes, who represented Australia at international level, died after being hit on the back of his helmet while batting in a domestic match. Both teams were wearing black armbands in his memory. Kohli though, did not like the parent like concern from the Australians. Some players need calm, but others need to get revved up, and you could tell from Virat’s eyes that his pulse had quickened and his adrenalin flow was amped up. When he reached his century, he took off his helmet and pointed to the dented emblem. The Adelaide crowd stood up and applauded.

Kohli went on to match Australian legend Greg Chappell’s feat of scoring twin centuries on captaincy debut. Dhoni returned to the helm in the second match of the series but the targeted attacks on Kohli continued. The recidivist was back at the sledging coalface they said, compartmentalizing the leader from the barely disciplined soldier must take a lot of energy they snickered. Kohli for his part battled fire with fire, and put on an audacious display of batting, plundering two more centuries in the remaining matches, all the while displaying a gift of comic understatement by confirming to anyone in doubt that he “didn’t mind having a chat on the field.” Australia would end up winning the series, but in the end, even they would concede that there was no point in getting into a verbal tussle with Kohli. The tone of the closing press conferences provided ample evidence for the respect Kohli had gained in the Australian dressing room.

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Has there ever been a more splendidly angry individual to play the game? There is little he cannot start frothing at the mouth about. It is a near heroic commitment to rage, as if his cricketing birth was from the stomach of John Hurt, such is the galactic spittle and fury with which he prowls across the world’s pitches. I once saw him sustain a minor injury when he slipped while taking a catch. As he got up, he hurled the ball ferociously into the ground. He actually seemed cross with the grass! But he has that special something that all the greats possess. A special gait, a special style, a grace and passion in his game. He makes cricket almost bow to him — not quite, but almost. He has taken over seamlessly from the greatest batsman India has ever produced. Heck, he not only played with Sachin, he became “the man” on an Indian team with Sachin. He has redefined the way teams look at a target, for nothing seems unachievable anymore. And yes, there is a perception that Kohli sullies his class, that his glorious cover-drives which race to the fence like the satin meteors is somehow diminished by his perceived petulance. This side of his character to me, is nonetheless as compelling as it can be unedifying.

Some fear him, some silently admire him. Most love him and hold him in awe. He is the hub of a team and a nation. When he strikes, a billion hearts both flutter and flame. At its best, cricket is a thrilling spectacle, and Virat Kohi its headline act.

P.S. By the time this is published, Virat would have become the fastest player to get to 9,000 One-Day International runs!