Virat Kohli’s last dance: out of step, out of time
It was Virat Kohli’s final dance in Australia. And he was up for it. But he’s always been up for it in Australia. He’s always been down for a battle in Australia. Driven, charged-up, and forever keen to impose himself on his arch-rivals. In front of crowds who have loved to hate him, but also over time grown to admire him, even if more grudgingly.
This was different though. This wasn’t Virat Kohli the master batter marching out for a contest with his bat flung over his shoulder. That had already happened a day earlier, on Saturday. Kohli’s final Test knock on these shores. It had also finished in an all too familiar fashion, poking at a delivery outside off-stump and being nicked off by Scott Boland for the umpteenth occasion. An iconic relationship that had ended in a whimper.
With Jasprit Bumrah unfortunately unable to take the field for the final chapter of this fascinating Test series, here was a chance for Kohli to wage one final confrontation against his oldest foes in their den.
For let’s face it, that’s how he’s always seemed to be approached playing cricket in Australia. Like he’s the lead protagonist in an action movie who’s up against all these impregnable forces who need to be thwarted. At times even before it’s time for him to face a delivery in the middle. Right from his first visit when he came here as a brash youngster in 2011-12 and rubbed Aussie fans the wrong way, despite beginning to earn their respect for the rather Aussie way in which he went about his cricket.
Virat Kohli the superhero. Virat Kohli versus Australia. Not just the players he’s up against. But the crowds, the media, and even the people of this country. Virat Kohli versus the world.
Here was a chance for him to make one final dent on Australian hopes and impose himself on a Test match. Not as a batter but as a leader. It was on Australian soil that he’d first got a taste of captaincy and fallen in love with the responsibility. It was on Australian soil in 2014 that he’d revolutionised the way India would play Test cricket away from home alongside Ravi Shastri. That is before he led India to their first-ever series win on Australian soil four years later.
Though he had only 160 runs to play with at the SCG on Sunday afternoon, and despite not having his team’s trump card at his disposal, you could see that Kohli still believed he could marshall his resources one final time to thwart Australia’s plans to get their hands back on the Border-Gavaskar Trophy that he’d originally taken from them nearly a decade earlier.
It started with the way he spoke in the team huddle. Followed by how he charged to the middle. The way you could hear him yelling out instructions, both to his own players and the Aussie batters in the middle. He was in their ear. He was trying to get into their heads. Like he’d done so many times in the past.
He even got to signal the ‘T’ for a DRS review. For the first time in many years. Probably for the last time ever.
But to no avail. The fields he set for the Aussie openers weren’t trademark Kohli in his ultra-aggressive manner. “Let’s give them hell,” he’d famously told his team to rile them up while orchestrating a Test win against England in England in 2021. Maybe he used the same words. Not like they seemed to fall the same way or have the same impact.
There was a brief period before the lunch break when Australia lost three wickets when you could see him really up and about. Maybe, just maybe, he could turn things around for India one last time on Australian soil.
The one thing that’s always been paramount to Kohli the cricketer and Kohli the captain is control. Control over his own game and control over the circumstances in front of him. Control over his own destiny.
After edging to the slip cordon repeatedly over the last eight weeks, he’d lost control over his own hands and therefore his own game. And as the Test match and the trophy slipped away from his team’s grasp on Sunday, you could see he was losing control, completely. There was the unnecessary throwback to Sandpapergate as he gestured to the crowd following the dismissal of Steve Smith. Back in his heyday, this could have been the kind of trigger he’d have used to wrest control back for his team. For himself. But it was not to be.
You could see it in his body language, as Travis Head and Beau Webster batted their team to victory. He was no longer vocal. He was no longer trying to make himself heard. He no longer looked like Virat Kohli fighting against all forces to conquer Earth. The battle was over, and probably so was his time in Australia as a Test cricketer.
Somehow galvanising his team to a famous win wouldn’t have made up for the string of failures with the bat in his final Test tour of Australia. But it would have given him something to take away. For this is not how he’d have wanted his 14-year affair with Australia to end.
He’s after all always loved coming to Australia. Not just for the cricket but to enjoy a bit of normal life. Whether it’s visiting his favourite cafe on Hindley Street in Adelaide, or just strolling around the parks with his lovely young family. He’s loved batting on Australian pitches, as proven by his first few tours here. He’s loved playing Virat Kohli in Australia. Right until his final dance. But now it’s over.