The Making Of Virat Kohli

At the age of 30, Virat Kohli is already one of the all-time great batsmen, terrorising bowlers and shattering batting records in every format of the game, in every corner of the cricketing world. Every behemoth started somewhere, though, and for Kohli, his beginnings were in the rough-and-tumble of Delhi’s age-grade and domestic cricket circuits. Even as a 10-year old at his first cricket coaching camp, his special talent was recognised by coaches and experienced players alike. In this excerpt from their book Virat: The Making Of A Champion, journalists Neeraj Jha and Vidhanshu Kumar illustrate the young Kohli’s immense potential.

It all began in the summer of 1998.

On 30 May, a particularly hot day, a Delhi-based lawyer, Prem Kohli, ferried his two children, Vikas and Virat — both staunch Sachin fans — to a cricket camp in west Delhi. A heat wave was sweeping across the entire subcontinent, the thermometer was touching the mid-40s, and prayers for rain were on everyone’s lips. Like the weather, the political temperature in India, and beyond too, was hitting an all-time high. Under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the nation had tested nuclear bombs in Pokhran in Rajasthan, and Pakistan had threatened to do the same (and it did so on the day Virat’s father first took him to the cricket camp).

This event sparked off a series of economic restrictions laid down against both nuclear-testing nations, India and Pakistan, by the USA and other countries, and put a strain on the Indian economy. In Delhi and other cities, the price of essential commodities skyrocketed. But this was also a time of hope. The Indian middle class was rising, determined to stay afloat above a million challenges, to fulfil their dreams of a liberalized, globalized, winning India. They worked hard to realize their ambitions and dreams – and who was a better symbol of this bright-eyed, hardworking India than a cricket genius called Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar! The Master Blaster was at the peak of his prowess in 1998, pummelling the likes of the impressive Australian bowler Damien Fleming and the other great Aussie leg-spinner Shane Warne into the stands of dust-blown Sharjah. It was as if Sachin Tendulkar was the answer to all of India’s problems and sorrows, and he was inspiring an entire generation to follow cricket like never before.