Australia v India: How Virat Kohli has evolved from self-focused prodigy to new-age superstar
Sachin Tendulkar kept a close circle of his school friends around him for normality but his scrutiny is nothing compared to Virat Kohli as the 21st century cricketing mega star.
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Births, deaths and cricket have meant everything to Virat Kohli, but not always in that order.
The most influential forces of his life have swirled around and jostled for top position on the podium, and over time those priorities have changed.
When he was just 18 years of age, his father, Prem, died of a cardiac arrest. The same morning Kohli walked out of his front door to play a game of cricket.
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With his father’s dead body lying at home surrounded by his distraught family, Kohli could see no other option but to go and bat given he was 40 not out overnight.
“I literally saw him take his last breath in front of me,” Kohli told American TV host Graham Bensinger in a rare interview last year.
“I tried to pump his chest and all that, nothing worked.
“The few doctors that lived in our area, we went to their place but no one opened the door because it was 3am in the morning and we couldn’t get any response.
“My sister and my brother and my mother, they all broke down. Funnily enough, I couldn’t cry at all.
“I told (my coach) what had happened and … said I wanted to go and play.
“For me, leaving a cricket match was something which was not acceptable, regardless of what happened in life.
“Not going to a match was not an option I ever had. I couldn’t resist that option in my mind.”
Kohli returned home that night for the cremation and remaining rituals. When his coach called in the night to check up on him, he was shocked that his star player’s anguish on the phone was all about an umpiring howler he’d copped that day.
The paradigm shift to Kohli’s bombshell that he will skip the last three Tests of a Border-Gavaskar series against his arch enemy, Australia, to be present for the birth of his first child is something quite profound given the competitive beast that has raged inside.
Former legends Sunil Gavaskar and Allan Border are surprised the Kohli they knew would ever walk away from a Test series.
Kohli told his brother after their father’s death that nothing could stop him from sacrificing everything for cricket.
“I feel like it was probably the most impactful thing that happened in my life,” Kohli said.
“Everything in my life came as a second priority after that incident and cricket was the first priority.”
Until now.
Australia coach Justin Langer says Kohli is the best batsman he’s seen, but respects him more for the maturity of his decision to put family first.
“He’s a human being like all of us,” Langer said.
“If I was giving advice to any of my players, I would always say never, ever miss the birth of your children, because it’s one of the great things you’ll ever do.”
BEING VIRAT
For all the commentary COVID-19 has sparked about athletes in bubbles, it is nothing compared with what it is like to be Virat Kohli in India.
Raised in a middle-class family in Delhi, with a Punjabi mother who still admonishes him for swearing on TV, life is very different for Kohli now.
He owns the entire floor of a luxury apartment complex in Mumbai overlooking the Arabian Sea where he lives with Bollywood star wife Anushka Sharma.
A cast of personal security staff, drivers, chefs and agents help manage his life, with any outing to a restaurant or public event a carefully orchestrated operation.
Sachin Tendulkar used to take his car out driving in the wee hours of the morning around Mumbai and kept a close circle of his school friends around him for normality, but it’s even harder for Kohli as the 21st century cricketing mega star.
Particularly when his wife is as big as he is. Sharma is a top-tier luminary in her own right and together they’re India’s equivalent of David Beckham and Posh Spice with a combined Instagram following of 125 million people.
Their understanding of celebrity has helped them bond as a couple.
After getting married in secret in Italy in 2017, Kohli and Sharma chose the Arctic Circle for their honeymoon in the hope Iceland and Finland might be one corner of the globe where they could avoid being recognised.
Apparently Kohli ventured out for a coffee one morning early in the trip and right there on the corner was a Punjabi in a turban.
When Kohli was in Melbourne on the last Australian tour two years ago, he took Sharma to a local cafe recommended to him by Australian fast bowler Kane Richardson, who had bonded sharing vegan recipes.
Fellow vegan Adam Zampa, unaware his mate Richardson had tipped the world’s biggest star into his local haunt, walked into the cafe wearing his Australian kit and almost tripped when he saw Kohli and Sharma sitting at the nearest table.
“I had to explain to him, I don’t usually walk around in my Aussie training kit,” Zampa said.
But as embarrassing as the chance meeting might have been for Zampa, it was more unbelievable for Kohli because at home he can’t walk out his own front door without being mobbed.
At $120,000 per Instagram post, Kohli has become bigger than Sachin ever was.
“A generation ago they wanted to be like Tendulkar,” wrote Michael Atherton.
“Not any more.
“In Kohli, India have a cricketer for the 21st century: fit, driven, obsessive and social media savvy.”
But while Kohli is a tycoon and a youth icon the likes of which cricket has never seen before, he’s more polarising than the universally loved Tendulkar or MS Dhoni before him.
VIRAT v AUSTRALIA
For the 39 million followers Kohli has amassed on Twitter, he follows just 63 in return.
Only one of them is Australian — Shane Warne — and although social media is not the only sign of friendship, it does reflect that many current players have a frosty relationship with the Indian skipper.
“There’s not really a relationship there, to be fair,” Australia skipper Tim Paine told the ABC recently.
“I see him at the toss and play against him and that’s about it.”
Like all generational athletes, Kohli is single-minded and ruthless.
He read once that Novak Djokovic only had seven per cent body fat, and decided he needed to match the tennis star’s discipline if he wanted to be the best: refusing to believe his gifted talent was enough.
“What my instincts say, my body must support,” he once said.
When it comes to the crunch and the pressure is on, there is a feeling Kohli shows his true colours and can be a petulant opponent.
Even in Indian cricket, Kohli isn’t necessarily in the game to make friends, and his high-profile falling out with legendary former coach Anil Kumble is proof the skipper isn’t afraid to stick his neck out.
In 2017, Kohli launched a scathing attack on Steve Smith, stopping just short of labelling the then-Australian captain a cheat.
“I don’t want to mention the word, but it falls under that bracket,” said Kohli.
Smith had been busted looking to the Australian changing room for guidance on whether or not to refer an lbw dismissal on DRS. That moment erupted into an ugly war between the teams, topped only in its viciousness by Australia’s Sandpapergate saga in South Africa 12 months later.
By the time Smith returned from his year in exile at the 2019 World Cup, Australia had been caught cheating red handed, but there had been a marked change in Kohli’s attitude.
As Indian fans at The Oval booed Smith, Kohli came to his defence and gestured with the crowd to stop.
“He didn’t do anything to be booed,” Kohli said.
“With so many Indians in the crowd, I didn’t want them to set a bad example.”
It showed Kohli’s ruthless personality had cooled somewhat, and those closest to him credit this change to the influence of his wife, Anushka.
In 2012 on his first tour to Australia, Kohli famously gave a section of the SCG crowd the bird, but nothing has incited local fans more than the six Test hundreds he’s racked up on Australian soil.
It’s for that reason that Australians don’t know quite whether to celebrate or commiserate the fact Kohli will only be here for half the summer.
“With Virat it’s a funny one,” Paine said.
“Because we love to hate him, but we also love to watch him bat as cricket fans. He certainly is polarising in that type of scenario.”
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