How India captain became the best player in the world

Former Indian opener Lalchand Rajput, who coached Kohli at under-19 level, recognised very early that he had what it took to be a champion. Not everybody was convinced, however.

The doubters did not have the advantage that Rajput had of seeing the young man up close. This proximity gave him an insight into the passion, desire and, more importantly, the self-belief Kohli held that he could be a great player.

Not that India hasn’t produced great batsmen in the past. Sunil Gavaskar and Rahul Dravid were veritable run machines and VVS Laxman was an artist of consummate skill. Sachin Tendulkar, especially the early iteration, was a genius. But none of them were in-your-face personalities like ‘King’ Kohli. MS Dhoni matched swashbuckle with Kohli in the white-ball formats, but he could not consistently pull it off in Test cricket.

Kohli’s strength of mind was tested in December 2006 when his father Prem passed away during a Ranji Trophy game in Delhi. He was playing for Delhi against Karnataka, and it was expected that he would withdraw. Instead, he came out and scored 90 in a backs-to-the-wall effort to save Delhi from defeat.

Kohli strode out of youth cricket in 2008 as the successful India under-19 captain and heir apparent to the greats of the past.

The fear in some quarters was that he was more strut than substance and that his belligerent attitude would be a handicap.

He was rewarded with his first one-day international cap as a 20-year-old in August 2008, but his first Test cap did not eventuate until June 2011.

Kohli struggled with his early elevation. He got caught up in the bright lights and made some poor choices. Doubts intensified that his antics and lack of professionalism would undermine his ability.

His coach, Rajkumar Sharma, gave him a wake-up call. He had a good look at himself and decided that he didn’t want to waste his talent.

Virat reviewed his lifestyle and immediately changed his attitude, diet and the way he trained. No Indian cricketer has paid as much attention to detail and no aspect of preparation was left to chance.

He became the quintessential professional and a model of the modern Indian cricketer. Allied with his determination and aggression, he became the player that competitors feared most.

Kohli says that one of the best things that happened to him was meeting Anushka Sharma in 2013. He credits her with broadening his outlook.

From a cricketing point of view, the turning point for Virat was his disappointing tour of England in 2014. English conditions and bowlers – Anderson in particular – had made batting seem more difficult than solving Fermat’s last theorem.

On his return to India, Kohli turned to Rajput for help. They spent 14 days together, working on getting into better positions to deal with the best deliveries. Tendulkar also offered some cogent inputs on batting against top bowlers.

During one of these sessions, Rajput told Kohli that he could be a similar player to Viv Richards. Kohli wasn’t convinced. “No sir,” he said, “he is too great for me.” It is now looking like a prescient statement. Sir Vivian would be proud to have played some of the innings that Kohli has played in the intervening years.

The ensuing tour of Australia was a watershed in which he set his career on a solid footing and won over the demanding crowds. This country holds a special place in his heart because “respect has to be earned; it is not given easily.”

Steve Smith and Kane Williamson vie with Kohli for the mantle of the best batsman of their era. Smith holds a handy lead statistically, but it would be a brave pundit who would split them.

Kohli, though, is the most important one in the context of world cricket.

As captain of India, Kohli is tremendously influential. He is also under the most pressure. It cannot be underestimated how hard it must be to go out to bat with the hopes, aspirations and mood of a billion people, riding on your every performance.

As Kohli says, “If I focus on that, I can’t breathe. I must focus on what I can do.”

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The fact that Kohli champions Test cricket is a huge plus for a format under pressure for time and space in a crowded schedule.

Test cricket has always been the pinnacle for him and it has driven him to be fitter and stronger to cope with its demands. It is why he drives his team in these areas because he wants India to be respected in the most demanding format.

If the captain of India is ambivalent towards Test cricket, some administrators would be happy for it to slide into ignominy, as they are seduced by the newer, shinier models.

An aspect of Test cricket that needs to be improved, he believes, is the preparation of more challenging wickets so as to increase the number of results.

Kohli has a broad perspective on the game. He is aware of his personal record, but that is not his focus. Winning games for India is way more important to him and he sees it as his prime objective.

On the broader front, he is aware of his status in the game and how he can impact others. His response to the Indian supporters who booed Steve Smith at The Oval during the 2019 World Cup was illuminating and heartening.

As Smith walked on to the field, the Indian supporters booed him for his part in the ball-tampering affair. Kohli immediately reacted by indicating to the crowd that they should instead be applauding Smith as a champion. He believed that Smith had paid for his mistake and he didn’t want his team to accrue an unfair advantage. It was a significant and admirable display of sportsmanship.

The brash youngster had morphed into a senior statesman.

As a batsman, Kohli is a ‘feel’ player. Heavy bats are not for him, he tells me. He relies on timing and precision more than muscle. His double-handed style is both powerful and freakish.

I am in awe of the way sub-continental batsmen generate power on slower wickets because of their two-handed style, similar to a hockey hit. Most Australian batsmen try to add power by the use of the bottom hand, but it is inefficient and, usually, ineffective on slow pitches.

Kohli has taken this to another level. His two-handed tennis-like slap down the ground to short balls is unique. It must be unnerving to bowlers to have balls that one would expect to go square of the wicket, come thundering back past them.

The best players don’t pay much attention to the coaching manual. They work off angles and length to score their runs. Kohli is no different. He is a genius at using the bowlers’ angles against them and shifts around the crease to change the angles regularly.

Kohli’s superpower is his imagination. He visualises how he can make runs, no matter the conditions or the situation of the game, and he spends considerable time preparing to do so.

While entirely understandable, it is a shame for this contest that Kohli will go home for the birth of his first child after the Adelaide Test.

This series is a bout between heavyweights. Arguably, the best two teams in world cricket will battle it out at near full strength. India won last time on Australian soil, but the asterisk was that Smith and David Warner were absent.

Kohli is an intensely driven man. He will want his team to reiterate their supremacy, and I expect something exceptional from him before he goes.

As Gandhi stated, “Champions are made from something they have deep inside them – a desire, a dream, a vision.”