Virat Kohli calls it a day!

I didn’t fall in love with Kohli the way I did with Sachin. It wasn’t instant. It was step by step, it crept up on you - one chase, one middle finger, one outburst, one stare at a time. Cricket is mostly an Indian myth, Virat Kohli is its flawed, furious hero like Karna. Not divine like Tendulkar, not stoic like Dravid, not flicky like VVS/Azhar - but mortal, combustible, aggressive, alive.

So here’s the thing, like most people who love cricket and follow the game, I too developed the nuance to see through a player. Reading through their behaviour on and off the field, picking between the lines aggression, sometimes doggedness and sometimes flair and nonchalance.

Now Virat Kohli, celebrated today by many - has been scrutinised by even more for his batting styles, antics, aggression, the middle finger in Australia, family, cover drives, chasing ability, taking on Mitchel Johnson etc for the last 17-18 years he has played cricket. I am making an attempt to walk through his career of what is distilled in my visual memory.

As I write this, I am ruminating over when I had the first glimpse of this player. If my memory serves me right, it was the U-19 WC in Malaysia. Cricket in 2008 was not yet flooded with unimportant fixtures and mindless bilaterals - thus you took notice if ICC was holding tournaments. The U19 win happened to be the second major win in less than 6 months, after the 2007 T20 WC - thus it was given ample press coverage.

Indian Team had players like Yuvraj Singh, Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Suresh Raina etc. who came from the U19 setup and were given an accelerated career because of an understanding to put faith in the youth. Thus when articles started being written about a boy from Delhi, who had two FC seasons behind him - cricketing gods took notice. He had already shared the dressing room with the likes of Gambhir, Nehra, Ishant Sharma, Vijay Dahiya, Rajat Bhatia, Virender Sehwag, Mithun Manhas etc - so there was enough good words being put about him.

And it was during these times, cherubic and young Kohli was handed a debut to play against Sri Lanka in the latter part of 2008. The cherished top order chose to step out of the ODIs and thus Virat Kohli was asked to open with Gambhir. We had already lost the Test Series(2-1) to Sri Lanka and their spinning duo of Murali and Mendis - 47 wickets between them.

During the first 3 years of his career, he was considered only in the ODIs where he did decently well, still trying to cement his position in the batting lineup. He started scoring decently well in the subcontinent, scored a few centuries and thus was selected ahead of the likes of Rohit Sharma who was yet to prove the mettle against bigger teams.

The first big flash on Kohli came when he scored a nice looking century in the first game of the 2011 World Cup, batting along side Viru he made sure that India made a mammoth total. Playing mostly as a support cast to an otherwise brilliant batting line up - he showed tenacity and game awareness in both QF against Australia at Motera and Final against SL at Wankhede. And yes, cricket watchers and critics took notice.

Probably it was under these circumstances, he was selected to tour the badlands of cricket as they call it, Australia. There are only a few batters historically who have done well against Australia and there are even fewer when it comes to scoring well in Australia. The 23 years old Kohli happened to be the top-scorer and probably the only bright spot from Indian Team during the BGT 2011-12 - if you want to know how bad it was for the touring side, read this by Greg Chappell who was the Indian Coach a few seasons back.

Kohli was the only batsman from the Indian camp who scored a century during that series. And while we are talking the records, Kohli remains the only Indian player to give a middle finger salute to the obnoxious rowdy Aussie crowds. The love affair with Australia had just begun for Kohli.

The finger was well deserved to be honest - and would make up for a great story when Kohli becomes a Grandfather recounting his stories to his grandkids.

Probably, I should fact check this - but if you make a list of players with more than 20 Test centuries and see where they have scored most centuries and against which opponents - a few names there stand tall. Sachin Tendulkar with 6 centuries in Australia, Kohli with 7 centuries in Australia, Gavaskar with 7 centuries in West Indies, Lara with 4 centuries in Australia, Richards with 4 in Australia and 5 in England and many more.

Contrast this with other greats of the game like Jacques Kallis, Younis Khan, Mahela, Sanga and Rahul Dravid - Kallis has 45 Test centuries and only 3 three of them came in Australia, Younis and Mahela both have 34 Test hundreds - yet only one of their centuries came in Australia, Rahul Dravid and Sanga have 36 and 38 Test hundreds but only one of their centuries came in Australia. Now imagine this, Rahul Dravid(233), an epic double happens to be the only century scored by the great man in Australia.

I could write more about Kohli - may be a few thousand words more. I could write about the duels with mean fast bowlers, I could write about shoulder-butting a 19 years old, or about the dual centuries in Adelaide(2015)1, the MCG masterclass vs Pakistan, the Hobart Heist against SL, the Asia Cup 183 against Pakistan and many more stuff. But probably it is not about that. It is about the person from Delhi, loved and hated for his antics, who embodied cricket and tenacious Indian spirit.

May be tomorrow, Virat Kohli might join Shastri in the comm box, may be he will become a full time film producer along with his spouse, may be he will become a world class-restaurateur, or launch a few more clothing lines, or start a cricket academy or school - I just wish him the best and be the Indian Jewel he has been over the years.