Cricket Editorial Indian Cricket IPL IPL 2024

No contradiction in Kohli praise or criticism

May 24, 2024
Boria Majumdar
Virat Kohli for RCB, IPL 2024 (Image: IPL)

On Thursday, I did a piece on Virat Kohli where I said he was brilliant for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), but did not get adequate support from his teammates. In my opinion, that is the truth. And as journalists, it is our job to state what we see. 

Many Kohli fans have expressed surprise, asking how I could praise him! Lest they forget, I have covered Kohli from day 1 of his career, and documented every high and every peak he has scaled. In 2018, one of his best years, I wrote a feature where I said, “WC2019, however, is all about Kohli. He is without doubt the best white-ball player in the world and, as captain, is the flag-bearer of a billion dreams. He has never batted better and is in the prime of his career as a batsman. He is motoring along and will soon go past Tendulkar’s record of 49 ODI hundreds and, even if records matter little to him, to the world, he is now the man to emulate. He sets the bar for others.”

That he is the best of our era is known. And honestly, I don’t need to say this. But it is also true that he hasn’t managed to win an ICC trophy for India in the last 10 years –

either as captain or as player. The same has happened with RCB. While in some of these tournaments, the World T20 in 2016, for example, he batted like a man possessed. For someone to bat like that and lose is a real heartbreak. But it happened, and truth be told, India did not win. So any assessment of Kohli, and you have to say that despite his brilliance, his team hasn’t gone past the line in a decade. 

 

This is where things turn dire. His fans take facts as criticism and start asking how you dare to put them in the public domain. How can you question Kohli when he has been the best player in the world for years now? The truth is, it is our job to question if need be. Kohli wasn’t able to do well in the World Test Championship final in 2021 or 2023, and performed modestly in the World Cup final last year. Now, this doesn’t mean he played the 2023 World Cup badly. Rather, he was stellar. So, while we say that he was sensational, with over 700 runs scored, it is also true that he had an average outing in the final that India did not win. 

Sadly, our fandom isn’t able to take any kind of constructive critical commentary. Praise, and only praise is acceptable. A question isn’t. While we celebrate Kohli and his incredible brilliance on the field, it is important to flag it if he does cross the line on occasion. But then, if you do so, the trolls will be all over you like a school of piranhas, questioning your parentage. Kohli is a demigod, and can have no frailties. 

The truth is he isn’t God. He’s all too human like the rest of us. That’s why he loses, and why he suffers. That’s why he continues to strive for excellence, like the best among us. Had he been God, he wouldn’t fail. And that’s the unvarnished truth. 

I have no qualms in saying that Kohli was the best Indian batter in the IPL. By far the best. And the truth is his team let him down. I’m not saying something out of the ordinary here. Rather, I am calling it as I have always done. For fans to say I have changed sides, or that I have written something rare, is very much like those wide balls that sail over the keeper for a 5. Sport is about the good and the bad. And in sport, you will always lose more than you win. Even if you are a legend like Kohli. The faster his fans accept it, the better. For them, and for Indian cricket.