Virat Kohli In Tests: Where Reality-TV Aura Meets Cricket’s Traditional Format

When Virat Kohli burst onto the scene, it was difficult to imagine that he would go on to don the Test hat for India.

Kohli was brash, aggressive, temperamental, just did not know how to keep his mouth shut, reactive, proactive, in-your-face player. He did not hold back and behaved more like a tribal chieftain wielding a revengeful memory in a world that had forgotten such ferocity.

After his U-19 World Cup stint, Kohli and Saurabh Tiwari were talked of as the next generation of Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif duo. Tiwari’s big hitting made headlines, while Kohli’s Ganguly-esque aggressions turned him into a young phenomenon – something which a generation growing up watching MTV would admire.

MTV had another show called MTV Roadies, where contestants would face mentally challenging tasks in controlled settings and judges would curse, praise, hurl abuses, explain technicalities and importance of spirit in the middle of the task to contestants.

As his career would proceed, Kohli would have to face nearly half of the globe as his judge. They would keep tabs on every movement he would make, every watch he would wear, every song he would listen to, every slice of food he would eat, every stroke he would play, every edge his bat would take, every cover drive, every pull shot and every front-foot defence.

After a few initial hiccups, Kohli’s limited-overs career started getting great leaps as he would whistle past young global competitors like Dinesh Chandimal of Sri Lanka. Kohli was great at pulls, drives, cuts and showed impeccable temperament in ODI format.

His ability to pace the innings was crucial in the man getting a Test cap on the West Indies tour in 2011. It was believed to be an easy assignment since pitches in the Caribbean are generally slow – a familiar territory for any Indian batsman having risen up through Ranji ranks.

But Kohli was troubled by West Indian pacers. On slow wickets, he was facing problems while facing short balls. The darling boy of sprints was finally seeing what a marathon looks like. He had to grapple with the fact that the muscle memory required in Test matches is totally different from what he had built till date.

He had the option of not returning to nets for red balls and spend his spare time from limited-overs in cashing on his popularity. But shoulders which had dared to lift Sachin Tendulkar for a final victory lap after the 2011 World Cup final would always choose to bear the toughest responsibilities.

Kohli grinding hard in the nets is not something the average Indian associated with his public persona in the early years. But away from cameras, Kohli was a die-hard Test cricket lover who saw conquering its peak as the ultimate triumph of his sporting ability.

Coming off after Adelaide century in the series (2011-12) which saw failures of Sachin, Laxman and Dravid, Kohli changed himself forever. His diet plans got ‘boring’, exercise regime got tighter, more hours got added to net sessions and some deliveries, on their merit, began to be left alone.

In his body language, Kohli became more self-assured, even more unapologetic, dominant and fierce. The aggression he showed with his gestures to the Australian crowd during the 2011–12 tour would later manifest in India's bold decision to chase 364 on the final day of the Adelaide Test in 2014. It was his first assignment as captain and Kohli led from the front with a superlative 141 off 175 balls.

The strike rate of 80.57 was indicative of what Australians were up against. The series was played in the sombre shadow of Phil Hughes’ tragic death after being struck by a bouncer. Yet, the Australians showed no inclination to tone down their sledging—even targeting tail-enders simply trying to bat. In the third Test match of this series, Kohli responded to fiery Johnson’s innocuous throw with crunchy cover drives and back-to-the-bowler punches.

Johnson, the man who had terrorised the cricket world for the last 500 days, forced batsmen to retire and bounced out the best in the business , was getting mock 'flying kisses' from a batsman who was barely 5ft 9in in height. The West Delhi brat had successfully hunted lions in their own den.

Johnson’s fear was never the same after that series and soon he retired from all forms of the game. Kohli finished the series with 692 runs – second behind Steve Smith’s tally of 769 runs. While the world focused on Smith’s antics and stories of batting while sleepwalking, Kohli’s time spent in visualisation and simulation of real-life scenarios never came to the fore.

No one could foresee this success when Kohli had become the proverbial 'bunny' of James Anderson a few months back. In the 2014 tour of England, Anderson had dismissed him four times, but the worse part is that Kohli was committing the same mistake again and again. Anderson must have felt like the ringmaster who could control a lion with the same incentive again and again.

Unable to sleep, Kohli sought advice from Sachin Tendulkar during his rehabilitation. In that series, it wasn’t just run-scoring that was hard; even defending a moving ball was a challenge.

Kohli and Anderson crossed paths once again in 2018, with tracks and conditions mimicking 2014. By then Anderson had more than 600 scalps under his belt. He tried every old trick, bowling outswingers, enticing Kohli to drive by bowling juicy lengths, and even bowling inswingers to make him drive.

As Jimmy would himself accept, Kohli was calmer, more patient and allowed the ball to come to him, rather than chasing it. His adjusted stance helped, but it was mostly about sheer grit and the sharp focus of an egret eyeing its prey. Kohli went on to score 593 runs in 10 innings.

In that series, Kohli’s cover drives were less crunchy, his onside flicks had less follow-through, his pull shots took much more bounces before crossing the boundary. It was a changed Virat – a Virat who now had learnt to resolve fights rather than engage in them, a Virat who by now was an established leader.

The leadership of the Test team is one aspect of his career which likely brought enormous change in Kohli the cricketer.

Kohli’s predecessor M. S. Dhoni was known for his tactical mastery, but he had trouble repeating the same in Test cricket. Although he did retire as the most successful Test captain of India (in 2014), Dhoni was often criticised for setting defensive fields and not utilising his pace battery properly. Additionally, Dhoni was criticised a lot for his overseas defeats.

Beating the South African team, which hadn’t lost an away series in a decade, was a crucial node in this journey.

These feats which now look just an event in hindsight endured a tremendous amount of mindset change. Under Kohli, the Yo-Yo test became almost non-negotiable, focus while doing core job and sledging while standing in the field became a routine. During the 2016–17 English tour of India, Ashwin had gone after Anderson and it was Kohli who had to turn into a peacemaker – quite an irony.

Under Kohli, every ball was a wicket ball, every appeal would touch higher decibels, every referral discussion was intense and no batsman could underestimate the importance of his wicket for the opposition team.

Kohli and Dhoni were by and large similar when it came to home condition dominance; but it is Kohli who can be credited for asking Indians to go for a win in foreign – especially SENA countries.

If his Adelaide gamble had a modest start, India's pace attack—led by Bumrah bouncing out Australia in the 2018–19 series—was a sumptuous feast for at least three generations of Indian fans who had grown up watching their team struggle on Australia’s hard, unforgiving tracks.

Experts may jump and credit this victory to the absence of Steven Smith and David Warner due to the Papergate scandal, but they will find it hard to explain why Cummins, Hazlewood and Starc could not collectively perform better than India’s pace attack led by Jasprit Bumrah.

The answer lies in how Kohli turned the Australians’ own tactics against them. Since that series, testing the Aussies with short balls has become almost routine—a strategy once foreign to most Asian teams. It makes for gripping Instagram reels for younger fans, while old-school lovers of the game watch on with quiet satisfaction.

Amidst all this drama, Kohli would place himself in different positions – sometimes as an advisory delight to bowlers, at other times a canker in the eye for opposition batsmen. There was no escaping him as the camera would run after him. He was a true skipper of a sports team – even when he was not officially a captain.

Kohli would debate with umpires, confront South African broadcasters as they tried to paint Indians in the same vein as Australians, give fiery speeches in press conferences, and even declare that 'friendship is over'.

Statistically, Kohli is the best Test captain India had – he led India to victory in 40 (58.52 per cent) Test matches – more than 27 Test victories of M. S. Dhoni. Incredibly, 40 per cent (16) out of these 40 victories came in away Tests.

Globally only Graeme Smith and Ricky Ponting had more victories under their belt, while only Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting outperformed him in percentage terms.

He led this march from the front with nearly 5,864 runs (63.5 per cent of his career runs) – at an astounding average of 54.80, with 4,208 runs of these coming between the four-year phase of 2016 and 2019 – an era in which his lowest batting average was 55.08 (in 2018).

Covid-19 and the related slump in productivity also seemed to affect him. He is not built like Jeff Thomson – who would bowl his fastest delivery amidst a ban and a few beers down. Instead, Kohli is like a machine which begins slow, grinds hard and shines like a diamond at the end of the process. He is not a gifted athlete like AB de Villiers, but Kohli is a quick and adaptive learner.

He gave everything to cricket in his first decade. His sore bones, worn by relentless effort, were just waiting for a pause—and Covid provided that unwelcome break.

In the 39 Tests he played post-2019, Kohli averaged under 32. Even James Anderson managed to notch a few wins against the once-unstoppable boy from West Delhi.

Probably setting the record straight could work as motivation for him as the Indian team gets ready for a five-Test match series against England. But Anderson is long gone and so is a challenger for Kohli. It reminds one of a crying Rafael Nadal on Federer’s retirement. For Nadal, it was more of a feeling of void when it comes to personal challenge.

Kohli has been lacking on this front. He has conquered all, destroyed many careers and touched new heights. There is no difference left in him and the hardness of milestones he has conquered.

His retirement though was less flashy – a quiet Instagram post saying “it’s not easy – but it feels right. I’ve given it everything I had, and it’s given me back so much more than I could’ve hoped for.”

It came at a time when India and Pakistan are embroiled in fiery exchanges. Lieutenant General Rajiv Ghai, Director General of Military Operations, did recognise this moment amidst his briefing to the nation.

A well-deserved respect from one battleman to another talisman.

To Virat Kohli, no one waits for your swansong at ODIs, because no one wants that.