CHENNAI: During the second day of the fifth Test between India and Australia in Sydney earlier this year, when Jasprit Bumrah (the stand-in captain) had walked off the field, Virat Kohli took charge. Even before that moment, he was actively playing a role..
Kohli had been marshalling the fielders, constantly having a chat and rotating bowlers even before in the series whenever Rohit Sharma was not playing. Even in Perth, Kohli was visibly involved in the on-field proceedings.
Sydney, however, was different. Kohli was the stand-in captain with Bumrah not taking part in the rest of the game. And for a little over 24 hours, it seemed like time had travelled backwards. Kohli was doing what he had done best, leading India in Test cricket.
All cameras were on him. Not a moment was missed, not a gesture was unnoticed. He would be standing in the slips, reacting to every ball, celebrating every wicket like it was his, frustrated after every play and miss like it was life or death.
While doing all this, he also made every fan, Indian or otherwise, feel what he felt, go through the emotions he went through. The Indian contingent was egged on while words and gestures were exchanged with the Australians. Kohli even imitated Cameron Bancroft moment from 2018 to show he got no sandpaper in his pockets. It is the relationship he has always had with fans, especially in Australia from the time he showed the finger.
That is how Kohli always has been. From that Australia tour in 2011, every single time he took the field in a Test match, Kohli engaged with the crowd like no one else. He made them feel like they were a part of what was happening on the field. They would respond in such a way that fans often became the non-playing member of the Indian Test team.
For an average fan who is there for the sheer emotion of supporting their team, Kohli was the poster boy who brought them to the stands in red-ball cricket. Between 2015 and 2021, when he was captaining the Indian team, Kohli kept the fans invested in Test cricket. He gave them memories to cherish forever. If the cricketing field was the theatre of drama, the former Indian captain was the conductor who had the pulse of the people. He made them sing to his tunes.
In every sense, Kohli was the pied piper of Indian cricket. Fans reacted, responded and followed to everything he did on the field. And it had a ripple effect when India travelled as well. Whether it was England, Australia or South Africa, no matter who the captain was, Kohli was the one in television and newspaper promotions. Last year, News Corp Australia went all in, taking a front page ad with a massive picture of Kohli and the caption 'Yugon kee ladai (Battle for the ages)'.
Through the tour, the Australian media expected Kohli to react the way he had in the past and it came in Melbourne when Kohli shoulder-barged debutant Sam Konstas. They knew what everyone else was very much aware of. No one made Test cricket into a theatrical spectacle, a good Tollywood/Kollywood commercial flick, like Kohli did. And Kohli did what he did because it had an impact on the team as well. There are innumerable number of occasions where he had gotten the crowd involved and their cheer had a part shifting the mood and the momentum of the game. Bangalore 2017. New Delhi 2015. Mumbai 2016. The entire 2021 tour of England... it goes on.
He might not have had an on-field farewell, but it was perhaps fitting that Kohli's final first-class game — his first Ranji match after 13 years — at the Arun Jaitley Stadium between Delhi and Railways showed what it meant for the fans to watch their hero in the flesh. More than 15,000 fans — perhaps for the first time since Tendulkar's last Ranji game in Lahli — thronged the stadium, braving an almost stampede like situation before eventually getting a glimpse of their king in his kingdom. They came, they watched, chanted his name for about two and a half days and celebrated the guy who gave them memories for life.
For Kohli is indeed the last of the stars. He is the pied piper of Indian cricket.
