Kohli: A 21st Century Portrait

Then he turned.

The man with the poster froze first, only to throw his head back and let out a scream of the primal kind. For, from the slip cordon of the Ferozshah Kotla field, Virat Kohli, posterboy of world cricket, had waved at this nameless, faceless poster-man, now delirious in his vantage of the sparse Old Clubhouse Stand. He was always hysterical, this man with the poster was – the square cardboard simply a picture of Kohli raising his bat for one of his several centuries in ODI cricket – his constant sows for ‘Virat bhaiya’s’ attention, with roaring nuggets such as “ek baar dekh liyo, yaar!”, or, “please Cheeku bhaiya, please!”, finally bearing rich fruit.

This, of course, wasn’t close to the first time Kohli had fulfilled the dreams of an adoring fan with a simple gesture of his hand. It happens countless times, all day, every day, on and off the field, wherever Kohli travels around the world, and will continue to do so long after the 36-year-old’s ridiculously illustrious career comes to an end. That’s just the way his life is, and is always going to be; a small price to pay for his superstardom. But this moment experienced by this man and several others during the course of January 30 in Delhi was different, for they hadn’t come to witness a cricket match with Kohli in a starring role. No. They had come, in vast numbers and unanimously so, to witness Kohli be Kohli. The cricket match was but an excuse, one that the fans could well have done without, as the Delhi versus Railways contest was but a background score to Kohli’s presence in a domestic game for the first time in well over a decade.

Not since the November of 2012 had Delhi’s finest cricketing son appeared for his side in a first-class match, since then becoming a worthy successor to Sachin Tendulkar on international fields all over the globe. Also, not since the late Eighties had the National Capital Region (which is the home base for three Ranji Trophy teams in Delhi, Railways and Services) witnessed a crowd of over three digits, if at all, for their domestic games. Until, an incredible chain of events – India’s successive Test series losses to New Zealand at home and Australia away, which led to the BCCI tightening the screws on the superstars and mandating them to play in the Ranji Trophy – forced Kohli to appear in the DDCA kit on home soil.

So, he appeared. And all hell broke loose.

In the path-breaking sports documentary, Zidane: A 21^st Century Portrait, 17 synchronised cameras stationed all across the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium during a La Liga game in 2006 trained their lens, real-time, on just one man on the Madrid pitch, Zinedine Zidane, the World Cup winner for France. The effect was that of Zidane being not only the focus of the match, but the centre of all our worlds; our universes. Even though in reality, the 70,000 odd spectators and the millions watching around the world saw Zizou, the beloved Real Madrid star and playmaker, share the spotlight with 21 other players, from his team and the opposition, Villareal.

Kohli’s Delhi appearance was no such gimmick. All eyes were indeed on him, right from the time he showed up (in a black Porsche, apparently) for the team’s first net session, two days ahead of the Ranji game. Though it was the middle of the week, fans thronged the Kotla, as did reporters in numbers that grace only international matches. One of the fans standing just beyond the nets enclosure was Shawej Khan, along with his young son. Khan claimed to have played age-group cricket with Kohli, and also boasted that Kohli would not just recognise him but give him a hug.

He did, they did, and the video of Kohli’s chat with Khan’s son soon went viral. “If others score 50 runs, you should score 100. Samjhaa?” Kohli tells the boy in the video, a wannabe cricketer dressed in a red Manchester United jumper and cap. “If others score 100, you must score 200. Double the benchmark, you’ll make it far.” The boy nods and gets a signature on piece of paper on which he has made a sketch of his hero, even as the TV cameras have a field day. Kohli’s new teammates too are seemingly in awe, because apart from fast bowler Navdeep Saini, no one from this Delhi side has played alongside the legend. Now they get to participate in his myth. Others, in the thousands, want to be a part of this myth too, so news of his availability spreads through the city, like wildfire.

Then he played, or at least took the field.

At about 8am on the day of the game between Delhi and Railways, the broad roads surrounding the Kotla are jammed. Not by vehicles but human traffic, parents and their children, teenagers and their lovers, zigging this way and that. Some of these fans, arriving from as far as east Uttar Pradesh, claim to have queued up at 3am – attending a domestic fixture is free of charge, but the seats are, after all, limited. The crowd is sluiced in through Gates 16 and 17 at first, leading up to the eagle-shaped stands to the north of the ground, now named after Gautam Gambhir. The eagle’s wings fill up rapidly, violently even, with rumours of a mini-stampede here and there.

By 9am, the administrators have no choice but to open up the two-tiered stand to the west of the ground, named after Bishan Singh Bedi. It soon brims with delight, with even the upper terrace wholly occupied, as the late-arrivals, relatively, are seated right beside the dressing rooms, named after Virat Kohli himself. Below Virat Kohli Pavilion, Kohli finishes his warm-up, a round of kickabouts with a football, a high catch here, a slip dive there. Every move of his is met with raucous cheer, even as Kohli’s captain, the young Ayush Badoni, wins the toss pitch-side and chooses to field first. “Better than this whole show falling apart in case he gets out early,” says a young TV reporter in the packed press box. On the terrace above the clubhouse, three broadcast cameras whir to life – this match has, of course, been chosen to be televised live.

Kohli stations himself at second slip for the first ball of the game, with his back to the Gambhir stands. Chants of “Kohli, Kohli” ring across the Kotla, and the wider region of old Delhi too, as Saini delivers the first ball. Few notice that the ball is tucked away by the Railways batsman to square leg, for they are now chanting “RCB, RCB,” the acronym of Kohli’s IPL team, Royal Challengers Bengaluru. So, Kohli faces them and claps and they explode once again. He grins and bends into his fielding stance for the next ball, perhaps also in awe of the situation. This, after all, is a domestic game, which he toiled hard and often in front of vast swathes of emptiness when he was a nobody. Today he isn’t just a somebody, but even God-like to some.

There’s a breach in the security, as a pitch-invader charges towards Kohli, signalling midway that he wants to touch his feet. The man prostrates in front of Kohli, before a handful of guards catch up and yank him away. Kohli instructs them to not hurt the man, but one guard does not abide, slapping the invader’s head. Kohli wags a stern finger at him, asking him not to repeat his act. The guard abides. The noise in the stands rises with the ferocity of a tidal wave. Within minutes, the Indian para-military is deployed, with the fatigues of the CISF and CRPF positioned all along the boundary ropes. The administrators cannot afford to take chances, even if Kohli can.

Like this, with one being in the centre of an estimated 15,000 spectators’s attention, the cynosure of all eyes, the match proceeds into the lunch break, where the audience in the Bedi stand sweeps right to be near the entrance to the dressing room. The enterprising rejoice as Kohli waves at them, even as to the left of the stand, empty seats gleam dully in the weak winter sun. With a stomach filled with chilli-paneer (another news flash), Kohli and his Delhi teammates take the field for the second session. And by the third, just before close of play, Railways is bowled out, causing a hum that simply did not ebb all day to spike with further intensity.

With Kohli slotted to bat at his favoured No.4 position, the Delhi crowd gets busy to vocally pray for two quick wickets. They will the dismissal of opener Arpit Rana, but cannot will another as Sanat Sangwan and Yash Dhull live dangerously but don’t perish and take the team to stumps for the loss of just one wicket. Dhull and Sangwan keep the masses from getting what they want early on the second day of the game, January 31, even as the administrators open the enclosure to the east to accommodate the burgeoning masses. For approximately an hour they toil on, until young Dhull – who also captained India at an Under-19 World Cup, just like Kohli – gets out. And the noise expectedly swells.

All goes mute, almost immediately. Kohli, who was plagued with dismissals well outside his off stump on the recent tour of Australia, is tested with similar deliveries by Railways’s Kunal Yadav. Kohli plays and swishes nothing but air as Yadav goes full and short in consecutive balls. The crowd oohs with fear. In the following over, Kohli thumps Himanshu Sangwan for a straight drive all the way to the boundary, his first. And last. For, very next ball, the fast bowler gets the ball to come back in and Kohli’s off stump tumbles towards the wicketkeeper. Instantly, all is quiet.

Surrounded by silence, Kohli, out for 6 runs, tucks his bat under his arm and departs towards the dressing room named after him. But in a short while after he completes his climb up the stairs and disappears, the crowd in the Bedi stand finds its voice again. They now have a glimpse of Kohli from their vantage. So, the men and women who came here for him and only him bay for Kohli by repeatedly, tirelessly chanting his name. Away from their collective gaze, the match proceeds without any fanfare on a largely-ignored cricket field.

About The Author

Aditya Iyer

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