On the front foot, the ball hits the deck hard, bounces a bit more than usual. It is not a ball that can be driven through the covers easily. Only the best cricketers might be able to do it, that too not easily. The ball reaches the bat. Normally it would trouble the batsman, but the sound made when bat and ball meet is crisp. It confirms that it has been hit with pure timing. The ball races away. The fielders in the ring have no chance of cutting it off. Deep extra cover tries hard to stop it from reaching the boundary but the ball has more than enough impetus to reach the rope.
That is the trademark cover drive of Virat Kohli. Playing such hard shots while making them look so easy is what he does.
Mind you, this is not just natural talent. He works hard day and night. His life is designed to make sure he does the best, always. His diet, his work ethic, his training, his belief, his self-confidence, it is all these things combined that make Virat Kohli.
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Champions aren't born, they are made. Virat is an example of this.
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Recently Virat hit his first ever double hundred in his First-class and Test career. It was only a matter of time before he got one. All his contemporaries - Kane, Root, and Smith - had double hundreds and now the four leaders of our generation are standing head to head, each of them with a double hundred under their belt, except for Root, who has two.
While everyone noticed the double hundred he made, Virat also reached 3000 Test runs in the very beginning of his innings.
Virat’s first 3000 runs in tests included some very commendable performances like those twin hundreds at the Adelaide Oval, or the 169 at the MCG, or the 100 and a 90-odd against South Africa and many more. Those could easily be the best performances of an average batsman’s career, but for Kohli, those are just his average performances, and the best of him is yet to come, like the 200 versus West Indies.
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The first 3000 might have been great, but whatever is to come is surely going to be greater and better.
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Why do I say that?
Because if his recent record is taken into account, what’s to come will be exemplary, extraordinary, phenomenal, better than what we have already seen.
He has improved on his technique a lot. He has almost zero weak points now. At first he was susceptible around the off stump region. Every batsman is weak there, but Kohli is not weak there anymore; just see his cover driving ability for proof. He has added the cut and the sweep into his repertoire. His scoring areas have increased. While he mainly depends on proper cricketing shots and proper cricketing technique, lately we have seen him play reverse sweeps in the IPL 2016. He is growing up, and with each and every day he is only getting better.
What is to come is not just a lot of quality runs, but also aggressive and brilliant captaincy from Virat, as we have all seen thus far.
Virat has captained India in 17 ODIs till now, winning 14 of them and losing only 3. This includes 2 whitewashes, one against Zimbabwe and the other against Sri Lanka. In Tests, Kohli has captained India in 11 games till now, winning 6, losing 2 and drawing 3. This includes the series win against South Africa which ended South Africa’s supremacy over the world in Test cricket.
Virat leads by example. Runs are not an issue for him with the form he is in nowadays. His record is simply unbelievable and even as a captain he is taking giant strides in international cricket. Nothing is stopping him right now, and if, as Virat says, “Winning is a good habit”, then India’s future is in safe hands.
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