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And so another of the great emperors of cricket abdicates. News of Virat Kohli’s retirement arrived on Monday morning not with the fanfare and ceremony that might usually accompany such an announcement but with a conflicting sigh of expectation and disappointment, an acknowledgement that the end had long been near. There was to be no stage-managed farewell like that enjoyed by Sachin Tendulkar, no last Indian summer in England or valedictory bow, just a few days of speculation and a social media statement to proclaim the end of an era.
For the long arm of Father Time taps on the shoulder of even the greats of the game. Into Test retirement Kohli quickly follows Rohit Sharma, more than 13,500 runs vanishing from their top order ahead of a tour of England in a flash during the Indian Premier League (IPL) hiatus. Where Sharma was perhaps pushed, it seems Kohli has jumped – retiring on his terms despite urgings from the hierarchy that he stay for one last hurrah to help see in a new captain.
But the sovereign always did do things his own way. One can say with relative certainty that other batters will rise to replace him, just as Kohli grew to fill Sachin’s shoes. Shubman Gill, a player of princely talent, appears set to be coronated as Sharma’s successor as skipper; Yashasvi Jaiswal is already threatening records. The immutable truth of Indian cricket is that there will always be another, new faces and phenoms popping up by the week, each seemingly younger and more gifted than the last.
One wonders if the game will ever produce another figure quite like Kohli, though. Across 14 years as a Test cricketer he has been a pantomime villain to some but a hero to many more, a relentless and often ruthless revolutionary at a transformative time for the sport. An international career that will continue on in the ODI format that he has come to dominate has spanned a period that has tilted the axes of cricket on and off the field, Kohli central to the story of the proliferation of franchise cricket after the IPL showed the way.
Yet, crucially, India’s icon never let it predominate. In an age of riches that threatened Test cricket, Kohli was a constant nuclear force which it could cling to. A great autocrat at the crease proved the game’s finest advocate away from it; the sport’s greatest star not simply loving red-ball cricket but obsessing over it, never content to be second best. Even as he conquered in coloured clothing, he craved mastery in whites. His torture in England in 2014 against the moving ball inspired the superlative summer of 2018 and the technical tweaks that proved the critics wrong, each thunderclap through the covers reverberating across the game. Between 2016 and 2018, Kohli made 3,596 runs at an average of nearly 67, with 14 hundreds in 58 innings.
It was an extended peak comparable to any of those enjoyed by the rest of the so-called “Fab Four”. If his fluctuating fortunes in the last few years have seen Kohli slip away statistically from Joe Root, Kane Williamson and Steve Smith, he was once very much their rival, each man unique in style but with a shared excellence.
There was much to ridicule in Kohli’s idiosyncrasies: the widened eyes and piercing glare at any bowler who dared dismiss him; the dibbly-dobbly seam bowled off the wrong foot; the win-at-all-costs mentality that changed the face of his nation’s cricketing culture. Having shouldered the burdens of adulation and admiration at his peak, he soaked up the wrath and rage as his form ebbed, never bowing or breaking under the strain even as he was mocked or maligned. If he could be tough on his team, he was tougher on himself, demanding the highest of standards. If MS Dhoni was a laconic leader who steered Indian cricket into the modern age, Kohli’s cult of personality compelled it to new heights. His 68 Tests as captain included 40 wins and developed a new pace cartel capable of going toe-to-toe with the best attacks of the age.
Changing pitches and a changing world in recent years have curled the corners of a portrait of greatness, but my oh my could he play. The twin tons at Adelaide that announced his arrival echoed over a decade in which the balance of cricketing power shifted. Under his premiership, India went from a sometimes-submissive side to a supreme team crafted in the image of their leader, never backing down from a challenge, never giving an inch.
There were double hundreds in Mumbai against England and Pune against South Africa, a twirl of the pestle as he ground ill-matched attacks to dust. Even as his magisterial air of authority slipped, there were glimpses of the golden days – in what proved his final series there was a hundred at Perth, fading strains played more carefully by ageing, anxious fingers but the mellifluous chords still found, still sounding sweet.
But the great guitarist has strummed his last tune in the arena that counts, now able to savour his cricketing dotage without the mental toil and turmoil that being Indian cricket’s rock star brings. Perhaps there will be several more IPL seasons to come, like a svelter Elvis in his Las Vegas residency squeezed until the last rupee drops in the name of corporate and commercial success. Or perhaps a quixotic hope is that, having moved his family to London, Kohli will get the county contract he has long craved, a virtuoso leaving behind the bigger stages to play the concert halls and caverns out of his sheer love of his art.
For if a criticism of Kohli the cricketer was that he sometimes failed to put his team first, there can be no disputing that he put the game above all else. Even in his last act as a Test cricketer, he seems to have gone against the BCCI’s wishes in following Sharma into retirement – a final flick of the V to the board that no-one else in cricket now dares to defy. Farewell, Virat, and thank you.
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