Virat Kohli on verge of becoming a global icon
To unpick the Kohli phenomenon you almost need to look beyond cricket, beyond the accumulation of runs and milestones
SOME of them had the real shirts; some had knocked-off replicas; some had simply cobbled something together. A converted polo shirt, perhaps, or a plain old tee. Just as long as it was blue, and had enough space on the back to write in marker pen the No 18, and above it, “KOHLI”.
The silence that descended on Pune when Shikhar Dhawan was out during the first one-day international against England last Sunday lasted fractions of a second.
Because it brought in Kohli at No 3: probably the world’s best batsman, and certainly the best-loved.
India loves Kohli the way it has loved few others. Sachin Tendulkar, yes, who Kohli himself first met at the age of 12 and was too petrified to speak.
But this is a different love, a different India, and Kohli tugs at its heartstrings like nobody else.
To unpick the Kohli phenomenon you almost need to look beyond cricket, beyond the accumulation of runs and milestones.
Former England captain Nasser Hussain, who met him recently for a Sky Sports masterclass, describes him as the “Cristiano Ronaldo of cricket”, and there may be something in that.
If AB de Villiers is Lionel Messi, all gift and (seemingly) no graft, then Kohli is a much better fit for Ronaldo: the gym-built superhero who nudges at the limits of human potential by ignoring them altogether.
And I wonder whether in Kohli we are glimpsing what a global sporting icon in the 21st century should look like: a once-in-ageneration talent who still, somehow, manages to embody something universal.
“As cricketers and as sportsmen,” Kohli told Hussain, “we limit ourselves without even knowing how much we can do.
“I’ve never put any limitations on my life. If I get three hundreds in three innings, the fourth one is another opportunity.”
This is the sort of mindset that chases down 351 to win when you are 63 for four, as India were on Sunday night. But it manifests itself in other ways, too. THE BEST HE CAN BE: India’s test skipper Virat Kohli is fast proving himself to be a once-in-a-generation talent
The young Kohli was something of a scatter-gun talent: a gifted batsman with an unfortunate habit of sleeping in the outfield during practice sessions. Not until his mid20s, and a poor 2012 Indian Premier League, did he realise that being very good was not enough for him.
He started eating right and working out. He began to groom himself for leadership. And somewhere along the line, he grew a conscience.
This is the point at which the Ronaldo parable runs its course.
Two weeks ago Kohli posted a video to his Twitter page in which he spoke about a mass sexual assault that had taken place in Bangalore on New Year’s Eve.
He railed against the hundreds of onlookers who did nothing, the police chiefs who played down the incident, the casual misogyny of a society that believes girls in short skirts deserve what they get.
“These people have no right to call themselves men,” he said. “And I’m ashamed to be part of that society. We need to treat women with some compassion.”
If Kohli were English, it would be commendable enough.
But in India, a country where -— according to a report from the International Centre for Research on Women — fewer than half of men believe in gender equality and two in five teenage girls has been a victim of sexual abuse, it was supremely audacious, and merely the latest instance of Kohli rejecting the orthodoxy that athletes should say as little as possible.
In recent months, he has used his platform to talk about air pollution in Delhi and highlight the plight of India’s border troops. In interviews, he rarely fails to offer straight, thoughtful, honest answers, even though the questions will never stop coming.
It is possible to make too much of all this, given that Kohli’s heartfelt soliloquies jostle for space among endless plugs for his myriad commercial and business interests.
But even this is an example of Kohli’s determination to have his cake, eat it, and then have more cake.
You get the feeling there is no grand strategy to all this, no emperor complex or blueprint for world domination, just a man building for the sake of building, striving for the sake of striving, every day a step closer to the best Virat Kohli he is capable of being.
Last year, ESPN rated Kohli as the world’s eighth most famous athlete: behind footballers Messi, Ronaldo and Neymar, basketball players LeBron James and Kevin Durrant, and the gently fading Tiger Woods and Roger Federer.
Since then, he has arguably grown in renown.
He has years left at the top, the adulation of a billion people in their homemade Kohli shirts, the admiration of many of the rest.
The prospect of Kohli ascending to the realm of the genuine global hyper-stars, a Tiger or a LeBron or a Cristiano, still seems arrestingly strange.
But when you live your life with no limits, nothing is ever quite out of the question. —©