Marking his guard in the first over in an ODI against Sri Lanka might have taken Virat Kohli back more than 15 years, to where it all began. The middle of nowhere. The Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium in central Sri Lanka is as far from the madding crowd as you can get. Near the historic rock fortress of Sigiriya and surrounded by jungle, it was a world removed from the Feroz Shah Kotla which was Kohli’s home ground when he was making his way in domestic cricket.
That morning, in the heart of Sri Lanka’s Cultural Triangle, Kohli opened the batting. With Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag, both injured, it was the only spot in the XI available for an Under-19 World Cup winner whose talent had already been spoken about for a couple of seasons. He would open right through the five-match series, on pitches that were uncharacteristically difficult for batting.
That, for those whose memories go back that far, was the Ajantha Mendis tour, with the mystery spinner befuddling India across formats. Having taken 26 wickets in three Tests, he left most of the batters clueless with the white ball as well, scalping 13 wickets at 11.69 in the ODIs. Of those Indian batters who played every game, only Kohli and Suresh Raina survived Mendis’s wiles.
In a sense, that made Kohli’s series all the more disappointing. He got starts in every innings, but with a highest score of just 54. There were no wonder-ball dismissals either. Twice, he was leg-before to Nuwan Kulasekara’s nip-backer, hardly a secret weapon. There was a miscue to cover and an inside edge onto the stumps, both off Thilan Thushara, and a run-out at the bowler’s end. The clips off the pads and cover-drives hinted at his potential, but the relentless run machine of today was nowhere to be seen.
Why this detour back to Dambulla all those years ago? Because there were shades of that debutant’s uncertainty in the way Kohli started his innings at the Wankhede. Two leg-side freebies from Dilshan Madushanka got him going, but the fourth and sixth overs, from Dushmantha Chameera, offered snapshots of the nervy start.
Chameera had started off with a maiden, and the fourth ball of his second over nipped in off the seam, and deflected onto the thigh pad off the inside edge. Had there been more pace in the pitch, Kusal Mendis might have pouched it behind the stumps. Instead, it fell half a foot short of his forward dive. Kohli had just nine at the time.
The first ball of Chameera’s third overtook the other edge of Kohli’s bat as he played too early at one that stopped a little. The leading edge flew to Chameera’s left. But despite a grab and a couple of desperate juggles, he couldn’t quite hold on. Two deliveries later, as Chameera pitched one in the channel outside off stump, Kohli reached for it. He struck it cleanly enough, but hearts paused for a split-second before the ball fell short of the two catching fielders and raced away for four.
The teenage Kohli didn’t have the experience to cash in on such fortune. The elder statesman, who turns 35 on Sunday, when India play South Africa, punished Sri Lanka to the tune of 88 runs. He was especially harsh on Maheesh Theekshana, and there were three sublime drives down the ground off the pace bowlers. It would have frustrated him no end though that his dismissal had shades of the one in Dambulla so long ago, popping one up into the offside. If it was Thushara’s left-arm pace then, it was Madushanka now.
But let’s not get emotion make us lose sight of the bigger picture. The 49th ODI century is an individual milestone and nothing more. Yes, it would have been wonderfully poignant to get it at what was Tendulkar’s home ground, which has such a vast stand named after him. Kohli and India, however, have far bigger Bombay Ducks to fry. There’s a World Cup to be won, and Kohli has already contributed an immense 442 runs at 88.4 towards that effort. Nothing else matters.