Kohli's abilities & vulnerabilities

Rohit Mahajan

‘Follower’ is a terrible misnomer to denote people who click the ‘follow’ button on a celebrity’s page on social media. Virat Kohli has more than 26 crore people ‘following’ him on two prominent social media platforms, but it doesn’t mean that they are his disciples or admirers of his ideology and beliefs. They’re just fans of cricket who like his game and his attitude, or just fans of famous people. That’s all.

But the staggering numbers do add up to weighty stardom that leaves people awestruck. One day in Southampton three years ago, freelance journalist Dominic Norton of Britain — population 20 crore lesser than Kohli’s followers on social media — was practically shaking with nervousness: An exclusive interview with Kohli had landed on his lap by chance. ‘I was terrified,’ Norton later said about interviewing Kohli one-on-one. I wondered why: ‘He’s human, after all.’ Well, he’s the biggest star of cricket and is revered by over 1.3 billion people, said Norton.

It’s true that Kohli’s brilliance is magnified by the number of fans who consider him a deity, just as Sachin Tendulkar’s undoubted amazing talent and performance were magnified by the number of people who considered him no less than God.

What would we have thought of, say, Jacques Kallis, if he had been Indian? Kallis averaged 55.37 in scoring 13,289 Test runs; that compares well with Tendulkar’s Test average of 53.78 in making 15,921 runs. Kallis also took 292 Test wickets at 32.65 — this makes him akin to Tendulkar plus, say, Zaheer Khan, who took 311 wickets at 32.94. Surely, Kallis is godly?

Tendulkar’s supporters would perhaps make an oft-repeated riposte: ‘Kallis never had to play under the pressure of performing for over one billion people like Tendulkar!’

Or like Kohli. The most amazing aspect of Kohli’s personality was that he had the bravado, the swagger... the Delhi machismo and aggression and, sometimes, roughness — yet, he would then go out and bat in divine fashion, with out-of-the-world cover-drives and straight-drives and wristy flicks. He just would not seem to crack under pressure.

Soft Kohli

Off the field, Kohli is a rather polite fellow, bowing to touch the feet of elderly cricketers, exchanging kindly words with cricketers and fans of other countries. Also, he’s increasingly revealing more and more of his vulnerabilities. He regularly takes off the mask of aggression and imperturbability and reveals his human side. He sends out the right messages about gender equality and co-existence among communities.

A few years ago, after failure in England in 2014, he said he was having ‘end of the world thoughts’ during that phase. Now he’s said that he’s realised that his intensity in recent years of struggle was fake, too.

‘I came to realisation that I was trying to fake my intensity a bit recently. I was convincing myself that no, you had the intensity. But your body was telling you to stop. The mind was telling me to take a break and step back,’ said Kohli.

‘I’m looked at as a guy who is mentally very strong and I am. But everyone has a limit and you need to recognise that limit, otherwise things can get unhealthy for you,’ he said.

Amateur psychoanalysts, aware of the facts of his public life, may connect his game-face, this on-field bravado, with the loss of his father when he was in his teens. That was a time when he had to be tough — and act tough. The only solace he could find then was on the cricket field, where one has to be ruthless and ruthlessly driven. A mask of toughness hides weakness or vulnerabilities. It’s to Kohli’s credit that he’s willing to admit that fake toughness can be unhealthy for an individual.

Now comes the time for all tough people to act tougher — it’s India vs Pakistan in the Asia Cup. But unfortunately, this clash is in the ‘lottery’ format, T20 cricket, where a game can be won in four balls. T20 cricket is the great equaliser, in which Zimbabwe can beat Australia and Afghanistan can beat West Indies — who would then go on to win the T20 World Cup! Remember last year’s T20 World Cup semifinals? Pakistan, unbeaten till then, were done in by three sixers off successive balls off Shaheen Afridi. Remember the 2016 T20 World Cup final? West Indies needed 24 off the final over — and Carlos Brathwaite went 6, 6, 6, 6 against Ben Stokes.

Right from 1984, the Asia Cup has been played in the 50-over format, except in 2016, when it was played in the T20I format.

Kohli has excelled in all formats, but right now, T20 cricket is seen as his weakest suit — a beautiful timer and caresser of the ball in the best of times, Kohli doesn’t have the explosiveness that is currently deemed essential in the Indian line-up.

Kohli, having taken a break from cricket after a bleak tour of England — during which he aggregated 76 runs across one Test, two T20Is and two ODIs — returns to India colours in a match against Pakistan, in the most unpredictable format of cricket. Discerning fans of cricket won’t blame him if he fails — it’s T20 cricket, after all. In the final analysis, he would not be judged on the basis of his T20 numbers, and certainly not on the basis of his 26 crore ‘followers’. 

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