VIRAT KOHLI - SYNONYM OF DEDICATION (By Priyam Bhattacharjee)

This is one story that has been etched in Feroz Shah Kotla  history and will be narrated for years to come. It is the tale of an 18-year old teenager, who loved cricket. An act, which stunned not just his teammates,but also his opposition.

The year was December,2006 & Karnataka scored 446 in their 1st innings at Kotla. It was cold & difficult day for Delhi, losing 5 wickets chasing Karnataka's mammoth 1st innings total.With half down, it was an uphill task for them to save the match. The 18-year old boy walked out & along with wicket-keeper Puneet Bisht, helped to reach Delhi 103 at the stroke of stumps.That boy stood solid with 40* but they still needed to climb a high mountain with the last recognized pair in the middle.

But that night, his world was turned blank & dark as his father, Prem Kohli, just 54- years old , passed away. He faced an awful situation as he had to make a choice - whether to cremate his father or to go and finish his onus for Delhi. This news had already traveled through out the dressing room. Next batsman was informed that he wont came to bat & was asked by coach to pad up. But his teammates, opposition & even the match officials were shocked to see that "teenager" arriving in the dressing room in full cricketing dress-up. He played for 281 minutes & faced 238 balls & when he was out his score was 90, a match saving one, by which his team was clearly out of trouble.

His father was cremated later that evening & the rest is history. A "teenager" transformed into a mature adult overnight. He is none other than VIRAT KOHLI - the man of commitment ,dedication with sheer self-believe.

After this, he made some significant performance in domestic season and for India u-19 team too, captaining his side to glory by beating RSA in the final with a fine knock of his own in final at Kualalampur in early 2008.

He soon joined the senior team in Sri Lanka quite deservingly in August 2008 and in absence of regular openers, he was asked to open but he didn't disappoint them with some commendable knocks as India went on to win the series. However, the established & formidable pair of maestro Tendulkar & Sehwag kept Kohli out of the team.

Kohli then travelled to Australia in 2009 for the Emerging Players Tournament & stamped his authority by scoring 398 runs from 7 matches with two tons & two fifties, ensuring that he remained fresh in the selector's mind.

The selectors had no choice but to give this boy another go in the national team and this time he repaid their faith by notching up his maiden ODI hundred in an impressive run-chase against Srilanka in December 2009 - his first of many outstanding knocks in run-chases. In the World cup final of 2011, along with Gautam Gambhir, pulled off a largely underrated rescue effort with 83 run stand after losing the openers early which setting the platform for MS Dhoni's famous  knock of 91* , which eventually India won.

We remember umpteen "Big (Virat)-innings", but where did it all begin? There's always the one innings that made the world to take notice of this youngster; the 133* off 86 deliveries which he started off as a boy but ended as a man by bashing Malinga in every parts of the ground. Chasing an improbable target of 321 in 40 overs to stay alive in the Tournament , this man took Sri-Lankan bowling to a different level, getting home with 2 overs to spare. Practically, pulling them out of the airport after MS Dhoni rather ignorantly remarked that India had already been eliminated from the tournament.

With this innings, officially, King Kohli had arrived to rules the roost. The king of the run-chase & a plethora of ODI records in modern age. After this, he smashed some of all-time best chases in history like 183(148), 100*(52), 115*(66), 140(107), 122(105), 106(92) and the series is go on...

He proved his credentials as a Test batsman too on 2013 RSA tour when he scored a sensible hundred in 1st innings to take India out of trouble and backed it up with a 96 in 2nd. Continued his good form in New Zealand as well & ended the tour on a high with an unbeaten century.

However, against the seaming Dukes & with skilled bowling by Jimmy & Broad, his technical shortcomings were exposed in England tour of 2014,scored just 134 in 10 innings & showing poor awareness of his off-stump.His failure against Rsa at home in late 2015 in a dusty rank-turners was like "Salt on Septic". Barring that,such as Brisbane 2014,Gros islet 2016 & Pune 2017 have all come in testing batting conditions and he has been dismissed -believe it or not- by a chink in his batting technique.

But this man had knack of silencing his critics whenever they were shouted on him.He proved again in Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy,scoring record breaking runs with four tons on thid tour,including a masterclass of 141 which almost pulled off a stunning run-chase on a tough rank-turner.

In the 1st week of 2018, Kohli went on to lead in RSA, a few weeks after he tied the knot with Indian actress and long time girlfriend Anushka Sharma. In a series full of trying & difficult pitches, Kohli batted better than he did in his tour of 2013 with a classy & gutsy knock of 153 in Centurion being the highest.

Kohli went on to conquer his final frontier in England later in 2018 too, scoring 593 runs in 10 innings, including  two hundreds and not conceding his wicket to his fable nemesis, Jimmy Anderson,even once. Although one-man army (read Virat) India lose the Test series 1-4 to England and Kohli's record as captain was tainted by two consecutive test series losses away, but Kohli buried all of his negatives of 2014-England series as a batsman!

Recently,he went on to become the fastest batsmen to reach the 10k run mark in ODIs, trouncing the maestro Sachin Tendulkar by a staggering 54 innings.
Despite arguments about the two new balls, with better bats, batting -friendly pitches and less-lethal bowlers, it is difficult to deny this was a statistical one and perhaps unlikely to ever be trounced.

Nevertheless,he had left no stone unturned to transform himself into the most consistent & versatile batsman of his age & arguably the better of the big four too. But one must look back at that Hobert knock of 133* where it all started,Kohli  hadn't only kept his team in contension,he had actually gave a drained,hopeless imdian team out of the airport.That night,at the Bellerive oval,Virat Kohli transcended into a league of his own to etch his name in cricket history-& one of the best alltime cricketer was born,the man with immense guts,dedication,commitment & will-power to achieve anything from anywhere.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHAMP! Many many Happy returns of the day.



STAT/Photo SOURCE- Internet

Writer- PRIYAM BHATTACHARJEE

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