orangesaint.

Mohali, India. 2016. The T20 World Cup. A typically raucous Australia hopped to a healthy 160-6. Most people expected to revere Dhoni. Or Yuvraj Singh. Then the Indian innings started. And then, Kohli. 

 

The chase began as all chases worth remembering do – pathetically. Shikhar Dhawan soared and departed, tangled in his own pull shot like a lackadaisical spider trapped in its own web. Rohit Sharma, elegant to the point of laziness, was putatively bowled coming down the track but factually too lazy to ever properly come down any track. Raina, hooking, stretching to be caught, was caught. 

 

India 49-3 – Yuvraj Singh, that ballet of a batsman not forged in Chandigarh’s heat but composed in its Rose Gardens, suddenly stricken, suddenly hobbling, but raging against the dying of his physical light.  

 

He perished, poor sod. 94-4

 

Then, Kohli. He’d been pottering about since Dhawan fell but, as if a gently floating lotus suddenly performing the breaststroke, he took charge. His genius lies in the fact that his most celebrated shots were singles and doubles – an Indian crowd gorging itself for eight years on the crash bang wallop of the IPL, in an instant quicker than the shock of the lightning, hailed sharp flicks of a rapier as emphatic, rapid shimmies to the other end as marathons. Most great batsmen have idiosyncrasies and Kohli’s is in his strokes – they are simultaneously a chainsaw hacking through steak and a toothpick dipping into tea. He will in the span of one over gently chip the ball over the outstretched hands of cover point, skim the ball past the despairing dive of long leg, rifle the ball past the ducking head of the umpire and slap the ball disdainfully over the reverential teenager in the fifth row. You couldn’t flay a mammoth; he could flay a ghost. 

 

That night, India limped to the 16th over – 59 runs from 30 deliveries. Then, Kohli. Then, Kohli. As if turbocharged by the ghost of Jesse Owens, he ran four doubles in an over. Against perhaps the greatest fielding side of the 21stcentury. As if suddenly putting a 1963 Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinetta into fifth gear, the momentum became Indian.        

 

And then it faltered. For a brief moment, as a satisfied Shane Watson put on his cap having conceded a laughably paltry eight in the 17th, Australia thought they had ridden the storm. But. But. 

 

He must be a time traveller, Kohli. A few overs earlier, Glenn Maxwell, his arm perpendicular enough to make Lasith Malinga ache with envy, his face contorted with the sort of cocksure aggression that comes from being part of an era-defining team, bowled an off-break full of self-belief in its ability to deceive, almost as if the particular spin applied to the ball was built on information from a trusted spy sent out to ascertain Kohli’s weakness. 

 

But Kohli. But Kohli. He had enough time to down a plate of chola bhatura, shoot an ad for Nestlé Munch and trim his immaculate beard before he looking up to salsa down the track and carve the ball over long off for six. Maxwell, crouching, hands on knees, dazed, mouthed a lovingly formed expletive in amazement. He’d be better off keeping up with James Hunt.   

  

And so the 18th over. 39 from 18. Suddenly, as if pirouetting from ballet to karate on a tuppence, Kohli forgot to run. Four past deep square leg, four from a yorker. God bless the Australians, they don’t give up. As the lanky James Faulkner charged in, he saw Kohli itching to come down the track and dropped the length. Kohli, like a ravenous tiger swerving mid-air to ensure its prey’s change of direction wouldn’t deny it dinner, balanced himself on one leg, leant forward and whipped for six.        

 

Kohli! Kohli! Kohli! Mohali chanted, increasingly hopeful, increasingly worshipful.  

 

20 from 12 but Kohli, as if a master sniper, found the Outback where there were previously only kangaroo’s pouches. His secret will always be his mastery of geometry – first a crack past deep point, then a slap through leg, then the model of consistency in twice launching the ball through the covers, now on the offside, then behind the wicket, always, always inimical, almost as if the shots were illusions to hide from the punters the fact that the game had already been won. 

 

Dhoni finished off in style, a magnificent strike for four when only four was needed. But Kohli. But Kohli. He collapsed to his knees in relief as India jumped to its feet in disbelief. 

 

If 1947 liberated India legally, 1991 economically and Ganguly at Lord’s in 2002 psychologically, then Kohli liberated India culturally. In accepting Kohli’s rage as the dominant form of Indian cricket, the country accepted that an Indian could be whatever. India could revel in India, never mind the world, the way Kohli revels in Kohli. When Kohli became Indian, India became Indian.

 

The Indian cricket team today is a strident outfit, relaxed but innately sure that we can take these. Before, the team used to tiptoe circumspectly in an open field. Now, they waltz on tightropes. Kohli’s determination has irrevocably changed Indian cricket and for India, he is both its ubiquitous news and its mythical lore. In the golden age of democracy, Kohli is a timely reminder that some people are special. Long live the King.