Leather&Willow Blogs

A couple of days ago, I was watching the India vs New Zealand match, the third and final ODI. It was a decider, and India lost the series.

Yet, for some reason, it was a game I will always remember.
Not because of the result, but because I found myself doing something I rarely do while watching sport, being in absolute awe of someone.

That someone was Virat Kohli.

What kept striking me was a simple question: How does a man who was already the best in the world in ODI cricket ten years ago still remain the best at the age of 38?

A few months earlier, before the tour of Australia in October, people were openly questioning whether he even deserved a place in the Indian team. Their doubts only grew louder after the first two ODIs in Australia, where Kohli was dismissed for two ducks. But then he returned in the third ODI and played a crucial knock of 70, reminding everyone, once again, why writing him off is always premature.

Since then, he has been in tremendous form, scoring three centuries and two fifties in just six ODIs, one of those fifties being 93. If truth be told, he never really went out of form. The runs never truly stopped.

But people forget quickly.

They forget that just two ODIs ago, he was the Man of the Match against Australia in a Champions Trophy semi-final. They forget that two games earlier, he scored a hundred against Pakistan to take India home. Somehow, appreciation and criticism for him often has more to do with TRP, views, and likes than with relevance or greatness.

Coming back to that game, I realised I wasn’t watching for the result anymore. I was watching only for the cover drives, the timing, the inevitability. Slowly, he kept taking India to a position that once looked impossible, lifting us from 71–4, then steadying things again after we slipped to 178–6, and carrying the innings all the way to 296.

India eventually lost the match by 41 runs. But something more significant was taking place. It felt like witnessing mastery.

There are times when you talk about greatness and legacy. And then there are moments when you simply stand still and feel something divine, something unexplainable, something almost superhuman.

He took India close to victory, scoring his 54th hundred, building vital partnerships with Nitish Reddy and Harshit Rana. The result went against us, yes, but the experience was rare and unforgettable .

Great things have happened in cricket before. Players have scored mountains of runs. Teams have chased impossible totals. But Kohli does something different. He doesn’t let the law of averages catch up with him. He just keeps scoring, in almost every game, year after year.

That consistency, that inevitability, is his greatest legacy.

There won’t be another Virat Kohli. There never has been, and there never will be someone who masters ODI cricket the way he has.

I’ve watched almost all of his innings and hundreds. And honestly, when I think about it now, the only thing that comes to mind is gratitude.

Gratitude that I lived in an era where I could witness the whole of his career, and someday tell people about it with pride, almost as a flex.