You look at Virat Kohli and you see energy all the time. And yet, Virat Kohli, when he is batting, is a different entity. He is almost lost in his own perfection.
-Harsha Bhogle, The Test (Amazon Prime Video, 2020)
Kohli’s start in Test cricket, however, was less than perfect. In his first three matches, away against the West Indies in June-July, 2011, he scored only 76 runs (in five innings). This led to him being dropped for the series in England in July-August. Though he was later called up as a replacement for the injured Yuvraj Singh, Kohli did not play in the Test series. But, his form in limited overs cricket got him another shot at Tests later in the year. The West Indies was once again the opposition, but this time at home.
The 23-year-old was competing against Yuvraj for the No 6 position and did not get to play in the first two matches. After India won both and claimed the series, Kohli was given an opportunity in the final Test. He took it, scoring 50s in both innings. The next stop was Australia. In the first Test in Melbourne, in December 2011, Kohli scored 11 and zero, as Australia won by 122 runs. In the second Test in Sydney, in January 2012, it was 23 and nine; Australia won by an innings and 68 runs.
But, in the Sydney Test, even as India was getting thrashed by the home team, Kohli had shown something—his middle finger, to be precise. He was fined 50 per cent of his match fee for the obscene gesture, in response to taunts from a section of the crowd. “I agree cricketers don’t have to retaliate. [But,] what when the crowd says the worst things about your mother and sister?” he tweeted about the incident. The ‘finger of defiance’ was perhaps the spark that ignited a raging fire which would engulf world cricket in the years to come.
In his remaining four innings in the series, Kohli scored 44, 75, 116 (the lone century by an Indian in the series) and 22. He was hailed as the only positive in the 0-4 whitewash of India down under. Thirty-five months, 36 Test innings and 1,127 runs later, Kohli returned to Australia. He was appointed Test captain for the first time ahead of the opening match of the series in Adelaide in December 2014, as skipper M.S. Dhoni was out with a thumb injury.
The Adelaide Test gave a clear indication of how a Kohli captaincy would be different. In his first team talk as Test captain, the stand-in skipper told his troops that if anyone was thinking that the Australia series was just about getting “two hundreds or three five-wicket hauls”, that mindset had to change. Off-spinner R. Ashwin was surprisingly dropped in favour of debutant leg-spinner Karn Sharma.
It did not quite work out. Though Karn Sharma took four of the 12 Australian wickets that fell in the match, the Aussies scored at close to five runs an over from his 49 overs across the two innings. It was his last Test. For Australia, off-spinner Nathan Lyon took 12 wickets and won player of the match. Another surprising choice Kohli made in that match, which would later become a trademark of his tenure, was to go for the win.
Going all in: Kohli was stand-in captain in place of an injured Dhoni at the Adelaide Test against Australia in December 2014. Giving an early hint of his guiding philosophy, he scored back-to-back tons and tried to win the match even at the risk of failure | Getty Images
Having been set a target of 364, India collapsed from 242-2 to being bowled out for 315, in a dramatic attempt to win. Kohli made 115 in the first innings and was dismissed for 141 in the second innings. On the final day, Kohli continued to play his shots even as wickets kept falling at the other end. He went down swinging—caught at deep midwicket—as Lyon’s 11th wicket (304-7). The message was clear; a draw was not good enough. “A draw is the last resort,” Kohli told ESPNcricinfo’s The Cricket Monthly. “I don’t mind risking a loss to win a game. I wanted us to play aggressive cricket.”
Dhoni returned for the second Test and Ashwin returned to the playing 11. India lost again. In the third Test, India secured a draw with Kohli being the team’s top scorer in both innings with 169 and 54. Following Dhoni’s surprise retirement after that match, Kohli was made India’s permanent Test captain. He told The Cricket Monthly that it was overwhelming to think that he was going to be Test captain. “My only dream was to play Test cricket for India,” he said. “It was surreal [to be named captain].”
“After things calmed down a bit, I went to my room,” he said. “Anushka [Sharma], who had come to watch that series, was there and I told her the news. Her feelings were also mixed as to how this happened so suddenly. After a while, it sunk in, for both of us. And that is when I broke down, because I never expected this to happen.” Kohli rose to the challenge by first raising his own game to the next level. His Test batting average as captain is 54.80, as compared with 41.13 when not captain.
In his first match as full-time captain—the fourth and final Test of the 2014-2015 series that India had already lost to Australia—Kohli scored 147 in the first innings. This made him the first player in men’s Test cricket to score three 100s in his first three innings as captain. His batting achievements and records are too many to enumerate. The most notable among his personal accolades are the ICC Men’s Cricketer of the Decade (2011-2020) award and his historic clean sweep of the three top ICC awards (cricketer of the year, Test player of the year and ODI player of the year) in 2018.
However, in order to achieve his vision of India dominating Test cricket, he also needed a bowling attack capable of taking 20 wickets regularly. To achieve this, he was willing to put more pressure on himself and his fellow batters by consistently sacrificing batting depth to play five bowlers. It could be argued that Kohli was lucky to have a fine selection of bowlers to choose from. The likes of Ashwin, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami had matured under Dhoni. While Ravindra Jadeja’s growth into a genuine all-rounder was remarkable, the emergence of talented pacers such as Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj was also a boon to Kohli.
However, Kohli had a major role to play in the development of his bowlers, especially the pacers. The fitness standards he demanded meant that the fast bowlers became more consistent throughout the duration of a Test. Ishant’s improvement under Kohli is particularly noteworthy—as per ESPNcricinfo’s data, his bowling average under Dhoni was 36.65; under Kohli, it was 25.85. Moreover, the strong cricket structure in India and the exposure tours at levels below the senior team meant that even the bowlers who were new to Tests were not overwhelmed by their tasks.
A defining feature of Kohli’s captaincy was aggression in team selections. Test specialist Cheteshwar Pujara, for example, has found himself left out on more than one occasion. Kohli, of course, enjoyed more freedom than former captains, having worked with court-appointed interim administrators for a large part of his captaincy. But, even after the power shift in the Board of Control for Cricket in India that brought former skipper Sourav Ganguly to the helm, Kohli did not shy away from dropping Ashwin during the incomplete England series of August-September 2021. When questioned about team selections by journalists, Kohli was visibly unhappy.
Kohli also enjoyed the complete support of former head coach Ravi Shastri, one of the two people, alongside Dhoni, who were named and thanked in the note Kohli posted on social media announcing his resignation. Shastri not only gave Kohli a free reign, he also stepped in to deflect criticism when it was necessary.
The 2018-2019 tour of Australia saw one such instance. After India played four fast bowlers in the second Test at Perth and lost, Kohli was asked whether the selection was a result of injuries to anyone other than Ashwin (Jadeja did not play). He said it was a judgment call. This led to criticism of Kohli, but within days, Shastri said that Jadeja could not play because he was not fully fit.
Kohli’s captaincy decisions also kept the opposition guessing. For instance, in the Lord’s Test against England in August, Kohli could have declared at lunch. But, he sent his batters—No 9 Shami and No 10 Bumrah, who had already put on a heroic 77-run partnership for the ninth wicket—back out. Two overs later, he declared. Shami and Bumrah had both managed a boundary each (they ended with 56* and 34*, respectively) and England conceded four leg byes. The two overs of Indian batting meant that England had less clarity and less time to plan.
True partners: Kohli with his wife, Anushka Sharma, and daughter Vamika | PTI
The match also saw Kohli and Co cheerleading from the pavilion as Bumrah batted under increasing pressure from the English bowling attack. The healthy dose of expletives (mixed in with the words of encouragement) that were heard on the hallowed ground at Lord’s may have shocked many gentlemen watching the game.
But, it also showed the team spirit under Kohli. It was something he nurtured with great care; it also helped when he stood up for players, like he did for Shami when the latter was abused over his religion after the 10-wicket loss to Pakistan in the T20I World Cup. The togetherness Kohli fostered contributed to the number of thrilling Test matches India has been involved in recently. Earlier Indian teams would often capitulate too easily.
Kohli was the captain the so-called new India needed. He was decisive and refused to second-guess himself. He has credited wife Anushka for his clarity of thought. “To have a life partner who understands exactly what you are thinking, feeling and what you are going through, I don’t quite know if I would have had that clarity if she was not in my life,” Kohli said on former England cricketer Mark Nicholas’s Not Just Cricket podcast. Anushka has herself made bold choices in her line of work—think the controversy around the highly acclaimed Paatal Lok, which she produced.
In his dealings with the BCCI, too, Kohli had made risky choices. For instance, he reportedly refused to work with former coach Anil Kumble. He had to know that he was painting a target on his own back. But, he stuck to his guns nevertheless. And, as pressure mounted on the back of the loss in the inaugural World Test Championship final and his own loss of form, it seemed only a matter of time before someone in the BCCI hierarchy decided to cut Kohli down to size, especially as he refused to be cowed till the end.
It is ironic that Kohli’s drift with the BCCI seemed to become prominent under Ganguly. As captain, Ganguly had ushered in the aggression that Kohli lived by, and had dismantled and rebuilt Indian cricket culture. The composed Dhoni and the combative Kohli had both benefitted from the platform Ganguly built during his captaincy. But, the shirt-waving skipper has been replaced by the suit-wearing administrator and his new position perhaps did not allow Ganguly to back a personality like Kohli.
All things considered, it seems like the right time for Kohli, India’s most successful Test captain, to pass on the mantle. From his perspective, it could be argued that he has nothing left to prove as captain. He said he wanted India to be dominant in Tests and was successful in making the team the best in the world. As the 33-year-old steps down, India is comfortably at the top of the ICC Test ranking, despite the loss in South Africa.
The enduring legacy of Kohli’s captaincy is the increased self-belief, aggression and team spirit among the squad (although, shouting at stump mics may be a step too far). The focus on fitness is likely to remain as it has proven effective and the team will benefit from this.
Former India opener Wasim Jaffer summed up Kohli’s impact nicely in his tweet on January 15: “When Virat took over as Test captain, India winning a Test overseas was an achievement, now, if India lose an overseas Test series, it is an upset. That is how far he has taken Indian cricket forward.”