A three-mile cycle to train (with kit on the handlebars)

If Kohli’s reaction to his father’s death indicated an almost preternatural ability to compartmentalise – a trait which has served him well as he has attempted to cope with the pressure of captaining India and of being that country’s biggest sporting superstar – it was not actually the start of his remarkable sporting journey.

That began on May 30, 1998, the day Rajkumar opened his West Delhi Cricket Academy. One of the first through the doors was the nine-year-old Virat, accompanied by his father and brother. Kohli would cycle the three miles from his family home with his kitbag on the handlebars. And even now, nearly 20 years later, Rajkumar can catch glimpses of the little boy when he is batting for India.

“He immediately looked different from the others,” says Rajkumar. “He had a lot of power for his age. He had that ambition to play with the bigger boys and not in his age group. He always used to say, ‘Let me play with the elders’. Because in his age group, nobody could get him out. He had a lot of self-belief from the beginning.

“He was strong as a fielder, also. He used to throw the ball from the deep to the wicketkeeper, which was not common at that age. He had a lot of physical strength.

“The best thing about him was he was never scared of any fast bowler – or any bowler for that matter. Even as a 14-year-old kid, facing bowlers who had played first-class cricket. He used to take them on.

“He has added a few changes for different conditions, but the style of his batting has remained the same since the beginning.

“As a young boy, the best strength in him was his cover drive – and he used to hit it very hard. He was a good driver of the ball, but played a lot of flick shots that I felt he should not play in the early part of his innings. Lots of times I had to tell him not to play that shot.

“But he worked very hard to master that stroke, and now it is his bread-and-butter shot.”

The West Delhi Academy now has 800 boys on its books travelling from all over India to work with Rajkumar. It is based at four sites around the city. But the main centre is in West Delhi, an area where people have to jostle for space and fight to get ahead.

Six Test cricketers have hailed from West Delhi in recent years: Virender Sehwag, Kohli, Gautam Gambhir, Shikhar Dhawan, Ishant Sharma and Amit Mishra. Of those, only Gambhir had the safety net of family money.

“Even as a junior cricketer Virat was a ferocious competitor,” says Vijay Lokapally, now the deputy editor of The Hindu newspaper and Kohli’s unofficial biographer, but back then a regular attendee at Rajkumar’s academy, where he would watch the young Kohli.

“He would take defeat to his heart and be upset with any loss. I remember he would wait for his turn to bat and if the target was short, he would like to go and open. Because his worry was that if he was slotted at four, he might not get an opportunity to bat. It is not that he did not have his flaws – he did, and he had some temperamental issues initially. But look how he has got over them and shaped his career.

“Today his mental strength is the best in the world, and it is because he comes from West Delhi, a very tough place. It is a very business-dominated region of Delhi where you are constantly competing with your neighbours or colleagues to find your place. Also the fact that there was such tough competition among the clubs in Delhi. He knew if he did not grab his chance, he would possibly never get it back.”