Even as the absence of Virat Kohli, the batsman, will be rued in the immediacy of his retirement, what he did as a captain for Test cricket in India shouldn’t be ignored. When M S Dhoni retired from Test cricket in 2014, the sudden manner of his announcement, perhaps, had led to mythmaking — of how he selflessly walked away from it. However, in the 2011-12 tour of Australia that had followed a listless tour of England, the rot and the drift had set in.
Things were afoot to replace Dhoni at the end of the Australia tour, and in the words of a selector, “appoint someone who cares for Test cricket more”. But the proposal of the selectors was vetoed by the Board. At a press conference during the series, when he was asked why he was continuing as a Test captain, Dhoni had replied, “because it’s a responsibility”. When he finally left the job, it was clear that a man who saw Test cricket as a passion project and not just a responsibility was needed. It was then that Kohli stepped up.
Last week, Bhuvneshwar Kumar brought up Kohli’s captaincy years in an RCB podcast. “I will give all credit to Virat Kohli for Team India’s transformation in Test cricket and the fast-bowling revolution. He brought in that mindset of winning everywhere — not just going with the flow. That mindset of Virat was very special.”
Kohli’s fierce ambition percolated in everything he did: Batting, fitness, fielding, captaincy, vision for the Test team, and intensity on the field. Under his captaincy, with Ravi Shastri as coach, the team rode on its pacers to climb from No. 7 to No. 1. In the latter half of his captaincy, there weren’t many decisions on the field that one could question.
His off-the-field manoeuvres, though, were what made him and unmade him in the eyes of others. At one point during his tenure, it seemed he was using insecurity as a performance-enhancing drug. Shastri didn’t deny it but he saw it as Kohli setting high standards and having to take tough decisions to follow his dream.
What were the criticisms of his captaincy when he quit the role in 2021? A lack of empathy with a few players that seemed to make sense to him in his hard-boiled wonderland — if Cheteshwar Pujara could score quicker, if Ajinkya Rahane could be more consistent, and if R Ashwin can remain injury-free for a full overseas series and deliver as a lower-order batsman everywhere. One can accuse him of lacking emotional quotient, but the cricketing logic wasn’t too off.
Rohit Sharma’s best years in Test cricket came after he was made the opener by Kohli and Shastri. In 2018, Shastri had told this newspaper that K L Rahul was the batsman that Kohli wanted to partner with Sharma. Not just Ravindra Jadeja, Kohli backed Rishabh Pant too after Dinesh Karthik’s horror run in the 2018 series in England.
There is not much to be said about his backing and passion for a five-bowler attack, primarily dominated by pacers. It would have been silly to do anything else when you have Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, a resurgent Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, and a young line-up of backup pacers. It was his vision and since he was blessed with talented pacers, he went to town with it.
Another criticism was the manic intensity that spilt over to unpleasantness on a few occasions. But how did he himself see it? When asked if he had gone over the top about one particular incident in South Africa, he said, “If we’d have gotten all charged up and picked three wickets, that would’ve been the moment that changed the game”. He lived for a battle, he loved being the victim even when he wasn’t, he liked being pushed to a corner because it stirred him to greater things. And, by extension, he thought it would do the same to the team as well.
And that’s how he continued to be until his last days as an Indian Test cricketer. On the final two days of the last Test match in Sydney in January when he was effectively in charge of the team as Bumrah and Rohit were absent, he was passionately whipping up his team and the Indian section of the crowd, much to the ire of Australian fans. Without him on a Test field, it’s difficult to imagine that supercharged buzz in Tests.
sriram.veera@expressindia.com
