What Makes Virat Kohli So Brash, Flash and Eager to Smash?

Before the India’s cricket tour of Australia began in December, The Daily Telegraph, Australia’s most popular tabloid, had asked the pointed question: “India’s cricket team arrives for the tour of Australia next week, but will Virat Kohli travel with the rest of the team or just strap on a jet pack and come super hero style?” 

It was a reference to an animated avatar that had been created for India’s captain for One-Day Internationals a couple of weeks earlier, featuring a cricketer-turned-superhero that takes on a big green monster. “We can almost hear the sledging now,” said the Telegraph. From thousands of miles away, we could hear the sniggers.

On the final day of the Adelaide Test, with Test captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni nursing a hand injury, Kohli was leading the side for the first time. India had been set 364 to win, on a wearing surface that was taking extravagant turn. Most teams would not even have contemplated such a chase, but with Murali Vijay offering solid support, Kohli played the best Test innings of his life, stroking a magnificent 141 from just 175 balls.

He was, however, one of eight wickets to fall in the final session as India eventually fell 48 runs short.

There were no apologies from the stand-in skipper, no mea culpa for the lofted shot that cost him his wicket in a manic final session. “At no point did we not think about not chasing the score down,” said Kohli. “We have come here to play positive cricket. No sort of negativity is welcome in this group. That’s the kind of belief we have come here with."


If the tabloids found mirth in Kohli’s off-field activities before the Test began, they weren’t sneering after the Boxing Day game in Melbourne. Australia sealed the series with a draw, but Kohli epitomized the defiance that has become the most laudable aspect of this new-look Indian batting line-up. He scored 169 and 54, while engaging in constant repartee with the Australian fielders.

After getting the better of Mitchell Johnson in a thrill-a-minute duel in the first innings, Kohli went to the press conference and spoke of how he couldn’t be bothered to respect those that didn’t respect him, and how he had been stoked by those close to the wicket calling him a ‘spoilt brat’. After one of the 11 fours that he took off Johnson’s bowling, Kohli puckered his lips and blew kisses. Not to Anushka Sharma, his girlfriend, sitting up in the stands, but to the irate bowler.

Kohli, now Test captain as well after Dhoni announced his retirement from Test cricket, represents a new paradigm in Indian cricket. If Sachin Tendulkar was ‘our kid’, and Rahul Dravid the young man girls wanted to take home to their parents, Kohli is the unapologetic bad boy who’s every bit as ambitious and driven as those that went before.