Kohlimania

Rohit Mahajan

Kolkata, November 4

Pandemonium and madness? Just a normal day in the life of Virat Kohli.

The evening before Kohli turns 35, there was pandemonium at the gate from which Kohli, and his teammates, would have entered the Eden Gardens. Rohit Sharma, the Indian captain, is incredibly popular, too, but Kohli drives fans to a mania.

The fans at the gates had no hope of meeting Kohli, the most they could have got was a mere glimpse of the man through the team bus’s windows — yet they waited and waited, restive and noisy, milling in front of the gate until the mounted police dispersed them.

There was mania, to a lesser extent, inside the ground, too — in the stand behind the nets where Kohli trained, a crowd of perhaps 100 men, women and children had gathered. Spotting him, they started chanting ‘King Kohli, King Kohli’, but a look and gesture from Kohli silenced them.

The spotlight is always on him, but it’s become brighter since Kohli made 103 not out against Bangladesh on October 19, for that was his 48th ODI century, one short of Sachin Tendulkar’s record. He missed a 100 by five runs against New Zealand in Dharamsala, and by 12 runs against Sri Lanka in Mumbai.

Is the noise affecting him? Rahul Dravid, the Indian coach, has not spotted anything amiss. “I think Virat’s been really relaxed, batting really well for us,” Dravid said. “Really keen to do well, as he always is. So I haven’t noticed anything different. He’s always been the same. He’s always been professional, always been hardworking, always been switched on. So, nothing different.”

Dravid said Kohli wouldn’t be thinking of his 49th ODI, century, or even turning 35 tomorrow. “I don’t think he’s thinking too much about 49 and 50, and certainly not about his birthday, getting a year older!” Dravid said. “He’s been really focused on winning the tournament, playing some good cricket for us.”

Through the evening madness, before and after the nets, Kohli personified calmness. Thirty-five tomorrow, he’s no longer the ‘young captain’ of 27 who, in 2015, had shouted obscenities at a journalist after mistaking him for a scribe he had a disagreement with. Why, by the 2019 World Cup, too, we had a different Kohli in view — the man who urged Indian supporters not to heckle Steve Smith with shouts of ‘cheater’ for his role in the ball-tampering scandal in 2019. He’s also been saying and doing the right things for years — supporting women’s rights, for instance, or causes related to the environment.