11, 289 First-class runs. 15,348 List-A runs.
In touching distance of 10,000 Test runs whilst being in striking distance of 14,000 one day international runs.
He needs 94 more to do it.
His fans need more of him every single day.
But at the same time his scathing critics, whose identity, by the day, is due to him, need more than a hundred reasons to pin him down.
That is their job. Run scoring is his. That is what he has done in over a decade and a half of playing cricket for a country that is crazy for it.
And now, as it turns out, craziness is presenting itself in newer forms for the man who pushed fans closer to the edge of their seats and pundits in closer proximity to newer adjectives given his boundless talent.
And why? Only because he’s struggling for form and runs in a particular format where by no stretch of the imagination is his record less lofty in comparison to any batting great.
201 Test innings from 118 games and against them, 9,040 runs with 29 centuries and 31 fifties.
In between those dizzying heights is a highest Test score of 254.
Yes, Virat Kohli is search for runs. Yes, Virat Kohli has been badly out of form and yes, he did commit that silly, rather apparently thoughtless effort for a run that perhaps never was. And it resulted in a run out that saw the country debate the moment as if its entire existence depended on it.
What does it all show?
Source– Virat Kohli fan club X
Perhaps the fact that when Virat Kohli comes out to bat, as he did, on that wretched day at the Wankhede in Mumbai, the cricket loving part of India does come to a halt.
And that’s as if its entire existence depends on it.
Surely, the criticism is heavy and the breaths taken when admiring the king walking out to bat as also when he gets out are bated.
The reason?
Who else, but Virat Kohli himself. And that is the thing with genius, isn’t it that it comes with a cost. The more you are enchanted by it, the more your expectations grow. Probably also because you don’t expect a lot out of the ordinary.
Here, in Virat’s case, is a batter whose standards of batsmanship are so enormous and the records so heavy that when he doesn’t perform, it’s more of a case of his unreal expectations taking fore than it is of realising a humanising truth. The truth that, think of it, he too, is a human after all. Is he not?
And yet, his performances so outlandish, as suggested by the numbers, that when they don’t meet the expectations, remorse inevitably strikes.
For instance – time has come to ask a question quite honestly.
Can’t be delayed in my opinion.
Are we angry and hurt with Virat Kohli because he’s not making runs?
Or is the anger because the failure on his part is that of a man so habitual of excellence that here’s a man who’s returned a fifty plus score in 132 of his 283 white ball outings.
That’s actually scoring 50 or more in every 2.14 inning. Regardless, as F1 great Kimi Raikkonen once said, “It’s all pure numbers, nothing more!”
Maybe the former F1 world champion was alluding to the fact that the true mark of a man and that of his caliber lies outside of his genie-like numbers and in Virat’s case, one of the most successful Test captains and a World Cup winner, there’s many factors.
Aspects that are as envy-inspiring as they are inspirational!
Source– ESPNCricinfo X
The same fans who are hurt today, were once, lest it is forgotten, waxing lyrical all day about his resilience, toughness, and forget not, strength of character.
Forget not dear people, that the same man you are condemning and calling out to get retired was once the young “Cheeku” who batted the very next day when moments ago, he had lost his father.
Forget that not.
Happy 36th , Virat. Happy happy birthday.