Tale of Unbreakable Spirit and Kohli’s Nirvana

It was perhaps easy to align with the dominant narrative in the build-up to this year’s T20 World Cup final in Bridgetown, Barbados. That it was the clash between the game’s perennial chokers (South Africa) and the chokers of the last decade (India).

If you have followed cricket passionately, there is no way you would miss the irony of it. In many ways, South Africa’s failure to lay their hands on the biggest trophies has remained the greatest mystery in world cricket.

Since their return to international cricket in 1991 following the two-decade-long ban in the apartheid era, the Rainbow Nation has produced some absolute gems — Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock, Jacques Kallis, Herschelle Gibbs, Gary Kirsten, Brian McMillan, Lance Klusener, Jonty Rhodes, Graeme Smith, Makhaya Ntini, Hashim Amla, Ab de Villers, Dale Steyn, Kagiso Rabada, Morne Morkel and Quinton de Kock.

Yes, the old-timers would argue that no matter what, these guys still pale in comparison to some of the South African wizards who never had a chance to dance on the big stage. A monster called apartheid had them on a tight leash, and the only form of expression those marvels found were on the picturesque county grounds of England, miles away from the glamour of international cricket.

Yet, Gibbs, Donald, De Villiers, Kallis, Steyn had known nothing other than heartbreaks in the World Cup.

It’s now easy to draw parallels between South Africa and the Indian story of the last decade. Despite boasting an embarrassment of riches, the world’s most powerful cricket country could never translate their potential in the big tournaments after their ICC Champions Trophy in 2013.

Their failure to win the big knockout matches in ICC tournaments since 2013 was perplexing even for the game’s most famous pundits.

Who could blame them when it’s India that can proudly claim to possess the greatest match-winner with the bat in Virat Kohli?

Has the game ever seen a more magical batter — who is capable of repeatedly snatching victories from the jaws of defeats almost single-handedly for his team — than Kohli since the glory days of the incomparable Viv Richards and the maverick Brian Lara?

Kohli, in his own words, can only dream of matching the technical excellence of his childhood idol Sachin Tendulkar. Nor could he effortlessly hit sixes like Rohit Sharma. Yet, in the last 12 years, he became the most ruthless accumulator of runs and a match-winner of epic proportions.

But somehow even the mighty Kohli didn’t quite live up to the expectations in the knockout matches of the World Cups. And when an unbeaten India stormed into the final of the T20 World Cup, mainly on the back of their skipper Rohit’s swashbuckling batting at the top order, the irreplaceable Jasprit Bumrah’s brilliance with the ball and Kuldeep Yadav’s loop and turn, Kohli was a man struggling for rhythm and runs.

— rituraj@khaleejtimes.com

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