Lord Of The Runs

Virat Kohli is the most powerful person in Indian cricket today, both on the pitch and off it. The entire cricketing world, meanwhile, is astounded by his phenomenal batting exploits

- Neeru Bhatia

Virat Kohli donned Indian senior colours for the first time on August 18, 2008, in an ODI against Sri Lanka. He scored just 12 runs in 33 balls, and India lost the match. Kohli, however, proved quickly that it was an aberration. By his third year in international cricket, he had started scoring so prolifically that comparisons with legends of the game were drawn. Now, the talk is no longer about if, but when Kohli will go past their records. No wonder former West Indies skipper Viv Richards called up his erstwhile teammate Michael Holding all the way from Antigua, during the recent India-South Africa series, to talk about the young superstar. Holding was in South Africa as a commentator.

Kohli is, undoubtedly, the most powerful person in Indian cricket today, his stature reinforced by his outstanding batting exploits. As the cricket administration mechanism in the country is in a legal tangle, Kohli’s power and influence are unmatched and unprecedented. Despite his immense popularity and power, Sourav Ganguly had to contend with a for midable Jagmohan Dalmiya; N. Srinivasan’s influence was unmistakeable during the M.S. Dhoni era.

Kohli, at the moment, is his own master. He is an intense, animated, expressive, emotional and angry captain for whom victory means everything. The 29-year-old is a typical big-hearted, middle-class Punjabi, who works hard and lives large. He may now be living in a spanking new luxury high-rise in Mumbai after his marriage to actor Anushka Sharma, but he is attached to his roots in west Delhi’s Rajouri Garden. He misses the colony’s famous Ram ke Chole Bhature, but he has given up the lip-smacking, oil-dripping food for an ultra-disciplined lifestyle.