Virat Kohli’s Ton is a triumph for Mental Health

 

 

-Anindya Dutta

A flick off the legs. A single. A simultaneous expulsion of a billion breaths longing for release. A raised bat. A kissed wedding ring hanging from a chain around his neck. A look up at the sky. A silent prayer. It had been three years and a lifetime in the making, but the moment had finally arrived. Virat Kohli was once again a Test centurion.

 

It didn’t matter that it was his twenty-eighth century. Nor, with this, his seventy-fifth overall in international cricket, he now stood alone at the top of the list of active cricketers and second on the all-time honours board behind Sachin Tendulkar. The raised bat was a reflection of relief, not triumph. Relief that the inordinate wait, the unfamiliar feeling of inadequacy, the allegations of being over the hill, had all been wiped away by that elegant flick of the wrist.

 

Once the relief had worked its way through his adrenaline infused body, and both muscle and mind relaxed, Virat Kohli will have realised that his 186 at Ahmedabad has been the most important innings of his life. That it has been a triumph. A triumph of will over an uncooperative mind.  A triumph of human resilience.

 

To understand the sheer scale of this triumph, we need to take our minds back to Dubai in 2022.

 

The Indian team has assembled for the Asia Cup. It is a crucial tournament, the final chance to find top form for the T20 World Cup that follows. In the lead up to the tournament, the broadcaster airs an interview with Virat Kohli. It doesn’t dwell on his batting struggles, but on his mental health. It is a different Kohli the world sees that day. Gone is the aggressive, in your face pitch persona. It is a serene Kohli. A reflective Kohli. Even, some venture to say, a healed Kohli.

 

He talks about his struggles with mental health. How self-doubt had won the battle against self-belief. How his on-field aggression became a wall to prevent the world outside witnessing the mental anguish tearing away at his insides. And how he finally accepted that laying down his bat for as long as it took, for the first time in two-and-a-half decades, would heal, and not destroy him.

 

This had been the panacea Paddy Upton and I had talked about for months as we each watched Kohli struggle on the pitch on our television screens in Cape Town and Singapore. We were not alone. As it so happened, Paddy had just joined the team as its Mental Conditioning Coach a week before the interview aired. The timing, I knew, was providential. As Kohli emerged from the abyss of the mind, there was no better sounding board to have around.

 

As the Asia Cup and then World T20 played themselves out, while the Rohit Sharma led Indian team’s performance was underwhelming, there was electricity in the air every single time Kohli walked out to bat. It was a feeling Indian fans had forgotten over the past three years as his run drought perfectly complemented the negativity of the raging pandemic.

 

Finally, on 8th of September 2022, after 1021 days, the drought ended. Kohli’s willow rained runs. 122 of them. The horizontal bat was raised again for the 71st time in international cricket. It didn’t matter that the opponent was Afghanistan. The king, his fans rejoiced, was back. Kohli followed that up with a blistering knock under immense pressure to take India to victory against Pakistan at the T20 World Cup, and then in December, swept the ODI drought away with a tide of runs against Bangladesh. The relief of the fans turned to belief. The return of the regent, as far as they were concerned, was now an indisputable fact.

 

I wasn’t completely convinced. Kohli and I had once talked about his well documented love for Test cricket. I knew that for him, the demons would only truly disappear the day his bat greeted the gods after a Test ton. It was a matter of time, but when that would happen, was the question.

 

Two weeks ago I had the chance, for the first time since the World Cup, to sit down with Paddy Upton. I asked him a simple question about Kohli: ‘What changed’? He thought for a while and told me: ‘This is a new Virat. A different Virat. Sometimes we need to take a step back to move forward mentally. You heard him in that interview. You’ve seen him batting since. Test runs are a matter of time.’

 

Fast forward to Ahmedabad last week. There was a zen calm to the Kohli that walked in to bat. Over the course of the full day he would spend at the crease, that would not change. Australia tried everything. They bounced him, he ducked. They packed the leg side, he kept them on their toes. They tempted him with flight, he replied with stoicism. They sent darts his way that lost their sharpness on meeting his willow. When they strayed in line or length, he punished them.

 

Over those hours in the middle, Kohli’s body obeyed every command of his meditative mind. It was a far cry from the struggles, the anxiety, the tone deafness of the mind. Life had come full circle. As he raised his bat to the skies, I sent the captionless photo to Paddy, who I knew was in a place that didn’t have live coverage of the match. Soon came the reply: ‘Happy. Very happy.’

 

So is Kohli. And this happiness is a special one. With the flick of the wrist and a scampered single, Kohli has not just banished his own demons. He has sent a message to every single person suffering from mental health issues that there is a world beyond blackness that envelopes the mind in its darkest moments. We may need to acknowledge the blackness and seek help to find our way back.

 

Once we step out of that seeming abyss, the sun will shine brightly, birds will sing on trees, our loved ones will still be at our side with smiles on their faces. And on a twenty-two yard strip somewhere in the world, Virat Kohli will be kissing his wedding ring, and raising his bat to the skies in acknowledgement of yet another human being’s triumph over an errant mind.