RevSportz Comment
Ageing is an unforgiving process, and more so for sportspersons. At the sand trickles to the bottom of the timer, what once came easily and naturally becomes a struggle. And it doesn’t matter how great you’ve been, Father Time spares no one. The two senior statesmen of India’s Test batting line-up are now facing up to that brutal reality.
A few days after he turned 31, Virat Kohli scored his 27th Test century, in just his 84th Test. By a strange twist of fate, Kohli had exactly as many hundreds in 141 innings as Sachin Tendulkar, whom he had idolised growing up. To put that into perspective, Viv Richards, who has often spoken of how Kohli most reminds him of himself, had 22 centuries in his first 141 knocks.
At that stage, Kohli averages nearly 55 and had just crossed 7,000 runs. Every record in the book appeared to be there for the taking. Fast forward five years and, as he prepares to celebrate turning 36 during the Mumbai Test, Kohli averages 48. His last 58 innings have seen just two three-figure knocks. Had he been a tyro making his way in the game rather than a legend with an immense back catalogue, the axe would have fallen long ago.
Rohit is no different. Having had to wait so long for his red-ball breakthrough with India, he was never going to accumulate Kohli-like numbers anyway. But 30 Tests into his career, exactly five years ago, he averaged a healthy 48. After twin failures in the Pune Test and five months after turning 37, that has now dropped below 43.
But it isn’t just the numbers that give cause for concern. Both men are batting like they have the weight of the world on their shoulders, and you can feel the anxiety among those watching each time they come out to bat. So, is age the culprit here or is it something else?
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Take Tendulkar, for example. After being written off with ‘Endulkar’ headlines and worse in 2006, he had the best year of his career either side of turning 37, in 2010. His seven centuries were scored in Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and South Africa, and he aggregated a staggering 1,562 runs while averaging 78.10.
There isn’t a soul in the cricket world who would second-guess Kohli’s fitness, but Test batting is about much more than that. Greg Chappell, another batting great who experienced a slump in his early 30s, is someone who has always said that the challenge is more mental than physical.
At 22 or 23, you are only concerned with the business of scoring runs. Little else clouds your mind space. At 33, you might be worrying about pregnancies and ultrasounds, or your partner’s post-partum depression. The outside world sees none of this, and can glibly write it off as lack of focus. But no man is an island or a machine, and the demands of daily life cannot simply be brushed aside.
By the time Tendulkar had his Indian summer in 2010, both his kids – Sara and Arjun – were fairly grown up. He didn’t have to deal with the trauma of explaining to a toddler why daddy/papa/baba was going to be away for weeks or even months. This is a challenge that both Kohli and Rohit face at present, and it’s one that cannot really be fathomed unless you’ve gone through parenthood yourself.
So, can either man turn his fortunes around in Australia and do a Tendulkar-2010? Given the talent they possess, you wouldn’t put it past them. But the real test will take place in their minds. How well can they retreat into the bubble that came so much easier when younger? If they can’t, the finish line will be in sight.
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