Every Indian will look at the recently concluded T20 World Cup fondly. Maybe except for one person. While he may not be entirely unhappy, a teeny-weeny part of him surely will feel sad. And that person is none other than Virat Kohli. While cricket is a team sport, the competitive animal inside of Kohli has always found a way of leaving his own imprint across World Cups and at every stage he plays. And perhaps for the first time, that animal inside him which makes him a class apart from everyone else was silent up until the World Cup final.
And amidst this rather unusual period, many questions were being raised about his form and inclusion in the Indian team. But Sourav Ganguly was vocally stern about this topic. As reported by PTI, Ganguly said, “He’s a once-in-a-lifetime player. Virat should continue to open. He just had a World Cup of 700 runs seven months ago. He is human. Sometimes, he will also fail, and you have to accept it.” The former Indian captain and BCCI president also compared Kohli to other Indian legends like Sachin and Dravid stating how even they are “institutions” of Indian Cricket and 3-4 bad performances don’t make them a weaker player. He further added to not rule out Kohli for the final. This a statement that aged like fine wine in the Final with Kohli winning the MOTM award for his 76 off 59 balls.
But before that, Virat Kohli had massively underperformed in the tournament. In the lead-up to the Final, Virat Kohli had scored just 75 runs in the 7 innings that he played. Kohli scored more boundaries in the final itself than he scored up till the knockouts. So, the real question is, was Sourav Ganguly biased in his statements about Kohli? Well, he surely was, for it had been any other player with such under-par performances he would have never even got a sniff in the side. Just ask Sanju Samson. But as they say, all’s well that ends well.
And to talk about it now sure seems unnecessary considering it was Virat Kohli who helped India massively to bag the ultimate prize in the end, but a very good case could be made that Kohli should’ve been dropped to number three. It’s quite ironic how Kohli’s best innings in the tournament came when he played the type of innings that made him the greatest player in the format in the first place. The “anchoring” role could be well renamed as the “Virat Kohli role” for all purposes. And guess what, throughout his career, he has played that role at no. 3. Coming in at that position helps Kohli better gauge the condition of the pitch and the match situation helping him build a framework of how he needs to build his innings from start to finish. And with wickets falling hard and fast in the Finals, this is exactly what Kohli did.
So, while Ganguly’s confidence in Virat Kohli was surely heartwarming, and gladly it all worked out for India in the end, Sourav Ganguly might not have been totally right with his opinion of Virat Kohli.
