Virat Kohli: The Man Who Makes Miracles Seem Mundane

Over the years, fans of Indian cricket have worshipped different gods and their virtues

– Sunil Gavaskar was an artist at the crease, VVS Laxman was a wizard, the stoic dependability of Rahul Dravid was the yin to Virender Sehwag’s yang, and Sachin Tendulkar was the genius on whose bat blade rested a billion dreams. But Virat Kohli is Gavaskar, Laxman, Dravid, Sehwag, and Tendulkar all rolled into one.

King Kohli has mastered all three formats of the game. He is immune to the colour of the ball, the size of the ground, and the quality of the pitch. When the match demands patience, he has more patience than a kindergarten teacher. When the tempo needs picking up, he shifts gears faster than a Bugatti Veyron. In desperate times, when the team needs to grind it out, his precise efficiency is like a soldier’s on the battlefield. As captain, his brain seems to work faster than a supercomputer while making calculations and taking risks.

Indians have more confidence in Virat Kohli than they have in themselves.

When Kohli comes out to bat, there is an air of inevitability about him. Unless he makes a mistake, the opposition will struggle to get him out, and this is usually the case. His technique seems flawless, his calling between the wickets is loud and clear, he finds gaps like he has a GPS fitted on his head, he has the fitness of a triathlete, and his temperament is rock solid. It’s not a surprise anymore when he gets a 100; in fact, it’s a surprise when he doesn’t. And that is an astonishing feat.

Kohli has reached a rare peak that only few sportsmen do, where he has become so good that it has become boring. When he bats, everything is so perfect that one can get lulled into thinking that batsmanship is easy. He makes things look so easy that one wonders, “Why doesn’t everyone bat like him?” However, nothing about his career and the tumbling records is normal. We are looking at an extraordinary sportsman at his ruthless best. He is head and shoulders above the rest of the competition, akin to Messi in football or Michael Jordan at basketball in the ’90s.

“Virat Kohli will break all records except Don Bradman’s average,” said Aussie legend Steve Waugh. On the eve of his 30th birthday, Virat has already become the fastest batsman to score 10,000 runs in ODI cricket, averaging close to a staggering 50 in all three formats of the game. He is a Titan of the modern era. While the records are out there for everyone to talk about, what numbers cannot quantify or record is the pressure of a big game, a mounting required run rate, banter on the field, and the pressure of a an entire nation full of cricket-crazed people counting on him. It is freakish how often he shows up in tense situations and gobbles up the pressure like it was breakfast.

Kohli has made excellence the norm, and the fans have come to expect nothing less. When he comes out to bat, there is relief. If India is in a good situation, he will make it better. If India is struggling, you know he will steady the ship. He is the number one Test and ODI batsman for a reason: he simply doesn’t make silly mistakes or throw his wicket away. The rare occasions where he does falter are made more memorable by this quality, like the Nile missing its annual flood or a Mumbai local arriving on time for once.

That is what makes Virat Kohli so special. Everytime he comes out to bat, he is capable of getting a hundred. The Indian cricket fan’s faith in Virat Kohli was perfectly summed up by former England captain Nasser Hussain, when he said, “I would bet my life on Kohli.”

You’re not alone Nasser, because a billion Indians do too.

Luka Modrić: The Man Who Embodies Everything Sport Should Be About

The visual of Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović trying to console a sobbing Luka Modrić after their side’s 4-2 loss to France in the World Cup final is going to stay with me – and I am certain I speak for many who love and follow football with ardent devotion. It was irrelevant whether you supported Croatia, France, or were a neutral spectator. Watching a grown man cry after a game is heartbreaking. More so, when it is Luka Modrić, a player you just cannot not love.

At 32, Luka Modrić might have played his last game at a World Cup for Croatia, taking them to the finals and winning the Golden Ball in the process. In his own words, it was a “bittersweet moment,” because personal glory is pale in comparison to winning the ultimate prize for the team. It tells you everything you need to know about the Croatian captain.

With three Man of the Match awards in seven games, Croatia’s midfield general had a stellar tournament. It is rather fitting that the biggest stage of them all, was graced by his tiny, dignified, and unassuming presence.  

In the time span that Modrić receives a pass and passes the ball to the next player, football seems to be the easiest sport on the planet. Everything seems simple, clear, and evident. “That’s what I would have done,” you think. Why doesn’t everyone play like him?

The football world idolises pace, dribbling, and trickery. We love watching Cristiano Ronaldo embarrass a defender with a nutmeg, we love watching Lionel Messi go past half the team with quick feet, we love watching Kylian Mbappé run at 45 kmph. In a world that is premised on speed, Luka Modrić has mastered the art of the pause. Of waiting for the right moment. Of moulding space and time on the football pitch.

At any moment in the game, Modrić is aware where every one of his teammates is, almost like an aerial cam is feeding his brain. He always has an extra second on him, to make a decision, and it always seems to be the right one, like a chess grandmaster who has perfected the end-game. He knows when to make a pass and the precise weight it should carry. He knows when someone around will make a run and what it’ll lead to. Modrić has the rare ability that very few in the game have, of knowing what’s going to happen in the next three seconds.

The reason Luka Modrić is adored in the world of football, is because there’s no nonsense associated with him. He doesn’t roll over like a drama queen every 15 seconds, he doesn’t have a flashy signature celebration or any headline sponsors. He never walks into an interview and says outrageous things. There’s an underrated professionalism and dignity with which he carries himself, that we all love. There’s nothing about him that says “Look at me!”

He quietly takes the pitch every game, runs more than anyone, touches the ball more than anyone, and creates chances more than anyone, doing the job for the team. That’s what Modrić is all about: He creates chances so his teammates can score and he intercepts play so that his defenders are shielded. A team man, a leader, and one of the best box-to-box midfielders in the game.

Croatia’s dream World Cup campaign will be remembered for its comebacks and its modest group of players, consistently punching above weight. A war survivor, a child refugee, a “shy kid who was too timid” to play football, Modrić also kept making comebacks from adversity and punched above weight, to become one of the most loved players on the planet.

In the words of commentator Peter Dury, “There isn’t a person who embodies their country, much like Luka Modrić”. In him, we see everything we want sport to be about.

Diego Maradona, Always The Man of the Match

There are many things Diego Maradona could have done after his stint as the world’s greatest footballer of all time. He could have, like other legends from the world of sport, chosen a dignified, greying life spent in a suit throwing instructions at footballers from the other side of the touchline, he could become a football pundit on TV, or he could have simply posed for photographs while doing humanitarian work across the globe.

But that’s not who Diego Maradona is.

Maradona’s entire life has been a Mountain Dew commercial – full throttle, filled with thrill and adventure. If his life were to be summarised as an inanimate object, it would be a Formula One car. It moves at speed, there’s a lot of thrill, but a permanent risk that things could come crashing down any moment. He is Argentina’s comic star, action hero, and chocolate boy all rolled into one.

When he’s not busy smoking pot, sporting a Che Guevara tattoo, and trying out a funky hairstyle, he’s pissing people off on Twitter with his comments and engaging in a verbal barrage with Pele. A heart attack survivor and drug addict, he lives life to the fullest. A footballing Charlie Sheen, if you will.

When Lionel Messi’s Argentina were sweating it out on the field in a must-win game against Nigeria at the World Cup yesterday, Maradona danced with a Nigerian fan in the stands, posed with a saint-like image of himself, looked up to the heavens every 18 seconds, enacted the Wakanda sign, showed someone the finger, and then had to be carried away to a hospital at the end of the game. While the internet exploded with his antics, Maradona would probably call it, just another Tuesday.

While everyone else saw a football game, Maradona lived his life during those 90 minutes. The ups and downs, the heartbreak and the jubilation mimicked his existence. Cameramen and photographs were probably more in love with him than Messi. With every miss and every foul, the lens panned to the stands for his reaction. Even if you missed the game, you could feel the twists and turns with his changing expressions through the course of the game. The world wide web erupted as the greatest footballer of the current generation scored on the pitch and the greatest footballer of the previous generation cheered for him from the stands, in the manner that only he could.

It’s no wonder that while other celebrities garner respect, Diego Maradona garners only passion. He is as raw, frank, and as real as it gets. In a world that dictates political correctness for public figures in the limelight, he has no time for it. He speaks what he thinks, emotes what he feels, supports what he likes, and consumes what he wishes, not giving a flying fuck about what anyone thinks of him. He’s football’s darling, who people love seeing at the games, while he has the time of his life, every single time.

As the world’s most passionate Argentinian, he is GOAT at everything he commits himself to, both on and off the field. It’s the only way he knows to live life. And last night he showed us that he isn’t just the world’s greatest footballer. He is also the world’s greatest football fan.

Does England’s 481 Against Australia Sound the Death Knell for Bowling?

When I played Brian Lara International Cricket on our Pentium 4 PC as a kid, I was an addict who had figured the game out – quite the way Nirav Modi had figured out the loopholes in the banking system. If the computer bowled a good length delivery outside the off stump, I had to move my batsman a bit, press Shift + Right Mouse Button (RMB) and it would go for a six. Every single time. Perhaps it was a game bug but I couldn’t care less as I smashed 250 runs in 20 overs and became the gaming nerd of my society.

To put things in perspective, it was 1999 and these were humble times. A time when good batting line-ups would struggle to chase 250 runs in an ODI game.

As I watched England take Australia to the cleaners at Nottingham yesterday, amassing 481 runs in a 50-over game, I realised that Codemasters, the developers of Brian Lara International Cricket, had actually made a prophecy all those years back. It wasn’t a game bug after all. Every good length ball outside the off stump was quite literally disappearing out of the ground. Only, this time around, it wasn’t a video game. This was real life and the Australian bowlers couldn’t just throw a fit and press “Quit Game”.

In a recent episode of the web show Breakfast With Champions, Afghan sensation Rashid Khan narrated a funny story where he cheekily asked a pitch curator during the IPL to prepare a turning track. The curator told him, “If I make a bowling track, no one will come to watch the game.” The quick-witted Rashid immediately shot back, “If you make a batting track, I won’t be able to come next year.” They both had a good laugh about it but the story captured the popular sentiment quite aptly: Bowlers don’t matter, everyone just wants to see big runs scored.

Cricket is no longer a contest between bat and ball. Remember the old days when tours were promoted as a contest between Imran and Gavaskar, Sachin and Warne, Lara and Murali? Today, cricket is a contest between my batsman and your batsman. It’s a dick-measuring contest. If you can score 350, I can score 351. If you can score 400, I can score 401. It’s Virat Kohli vs Steve Smith vs Joe Root vs Kane Williamson. Bowlers do not exist to create their own legacies, they merely exist as a hindrance to a batsman’s legacy.

The assault on bowling has been institutional and relentless. To paraphrase the poetic brilliance of German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller:

First, they changed the fielding restrictions, and I didn’t speak out. Because I wanted to see more runs.

Then, they allowed bigger, better, wider bats and I didn’t speak out. Because I wanted to see more runs.

Then, they invented the T20 format with shorter boundaries, flat tracks and I didn’t speak out. Because I wanted to see more runs.

Then, they started penalising bowlers with free hits and I didn’t speak out. Because I wanted to see more runs.

Then, there were almost 500 runs scored in an ODI with no one left to speak for the bowlers.

The ICC would quite simply argue that it is giving the fans what they want. If people love Race 3, Bollywood will keep making Race-like movies. If people want to see fours and sixes, fuck the bowlers, we’ll give you fours and sixes. It is a beautiful advertisement for the World Cup to be held in England next year. Come to the stadiums, pay for a ticket, we promise a run feast. As for the bowling, we’ll get cement tracks or replace humans with AI machines if we have to.

Even though the ICC believes it’s market demand and it is good for the game, let me try to argue otherwise. I might perhaps be in the minority, but I’m confident I’ll get you on my side as time passes by. You see, flat tracks and run-scoring machines not only harm bowlers, but they also harm batsmen. Remember when scoring a Test hundred used to mean something? Now, it’s merely a statistic. You had to grit it out in the morning session, counter the early moving ball, and negate spine with sturdy technique.

Test hundreds are now like MBAs: Everyone has one and it’s too easy to get, and so it has now ceased to mean anything. Less than a decade back, it was astonishing when a batsman scored 150+ for the first time in an ODI. And then it started happening every other week. A new Taimur Ali Khan picture gets more eyeballs than a 150 in an ODI.

Soon, 200 will be the new normal, or even 250 perhaps. But cricket as a sport is losing its essence as the audience is normalised to more and more runs.

When you think of exciting moments in cricket, you think of Sachin hitting Shoaib for a six over third man and then Shoaib knocking him over with a bouncer. You think of Shane Watson trying to ride it out against Wahab Riaz on a pacey wicket, or Mitchell Johnson and Kevin Pietersen going hard at each other in the Ashes. The reason these battles stick in our memory is because there was an air of unpredictability about them, and that is what sport is about. Both the batsman and bowler had equal opportunity every single ball, and that made it exciting.

Kids of the future will grow up watching batsmanship being glorified disproportionately. Crowds love batsmen, sponsors love them; they will have the likes of Kohli and Root and Williamson as role models to look up to.

But no bowling heroes, with quality dipping with every generation because of the balance being heavily skewed. My generation had Wasim, Waqar, Warne, Murali, Lee, and Walsh and it seems unlikely that the trend will be replicated over the years. Who wants to be a bowler in this environment? Especially, with every other ball sailing over your head for a maximum.

And just like that, the fine and nuanced art of bowling will keep getting eroded, approaching its slow and timely death.

“Beta, batsman ban jao, bahut scope hai,” a coach is telling a seven-year-old somewhere.

Should Women Cricketers Get Equal Pay? The Economic Argument

The Indian women’s cricket team is on an absolute tear in the ongoing Asia Cup, demolishing opposition with an authority that rivals world-beating sides like Viv Richards’ West Indies and Steve Waugh’s Australia. Despite proving for the umpteenth time that the quality of their game is on the same level as their male counterparts, a yawning gap exists when it comes to how they’re rewarded. The prize amount for winning Player of the Match, an honour bagged so far by captain Mithali Raj and Harmanpreet Kaur, is a paltry 250 USD. In comparison, the Man of the Match in the 2016 men’s Asia Cup final, Shikhar Dhawan, took home 7,500 USD. When it comes to getting a slice of the monetary pie, women cricketers are still getting the stepchild treatment from the BCCI.

In March this year, BCCI announced new contracts for both the men’s and women’s cricket teams. A few of Kohli’s boys would be earning 14 times more money than Mithali & Co. To sum up the irony, they decided to make the announcement just a day before Women’s Day.

The pay gap between men and women players of the Indian cricket teams needs more scrutiny than merely comparing final contract figures of male and female cricketers. Not only is it a gender issue, there are also economic realities of the free market attached to it. It is important to understand why these differences exist, how the BCCI – generally regarded one of our most corrupt admin bodies – has failed, and what they can do to correct course. And there’s a lot that the richest sporting body in cricket can do.

Why do male cricketers get paid so much more than their female counterparts?

Think of men’s cricket as a chain reaction, where one thing leads to another. Male cricketers attract bigger crowds and large viewership on TV. These in turn attract big sponsorship and branding deals, which result in higher revenues being generated from the game, which then enable these fat cheques and huge monetary contracts for male players. One of the reasons women are paid less is because – sadly – women’s sport makes less money.

It brings us to a difficult question that needs deeper introspection than just a knee-jerk Twitter outrage. Why do people not follow women’s cricket with the same ardour and in the same capacity? If we don’t watch the games and follow the team’s progress with the same level of obsession that we followed Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma’s wedding, can we really blame sponsors and advertisers if they don’t see a similar potential in the women’s game? The very people who want equal pay for women players haven’t adapted to the game. Are we, then, not part of the same problem?

Some arguments have been made about how women’s sport isn’t as interesting. To which, I call bullshit. One only needs to recollect the enthralling Olympic final between PV Sindhu and Carolina Marin, or thousands of other exciting contests across sports day in and day out. To say that men’s sport is 10, 20, or 40 times more interesting to demand that kind of a pay difference, is a ridiculous argument that holds very little ground. Besides, it’s not true. Think about the success of the Women’s Big Bash League in Australia, that has been an economic success and witnessed record viewership in 2017. The 2015 Women’s Football World Cup final had more viewership in the US than the men’s football world cup final.

The market and the opportunity is right out there. If only we – viewers, the BCCI, sponsors, and advertisers – knew how to take advantage of it.

But we don’t, because women’s cricket has been primed for failure. This isn’t an equal opportunity market at many levels, and the pay cheque is only a small part of it.

This is where the BCCI can make amends. Women’s cricket will catch up with the men’s game only and only when the body decides to invest in it commercially. This can’t happen piecemeal. It has to be at a pace similar to the men’s game. They have to ensure infrastructure and quality wherein women don’t have to work part-time because sport is not a viable full-time profession. Senior domestic players make around ₹30,000 a year, which is ₹2,500 per month. You probably pay your house help a little more than that. How can the players be expected to opt for cricket as a full-time career?

It is quite appalling how little Indian women’s players are paid compared to their international counterparts in Australia and England. Cricket Australia covers its domestic cricketers under central contracts and also came up with the Women’s Big Bash League. Even the England Cricket Board has pledged £3 million for a Women’s Twenty20 Super League.

This is an important time to emphasise, yet again, that the BCCI is the richest sporting body in the cricket. In the entire world. What gives?

The solution lies in another chain reaction. If the BCCI decides to invest in the game, women players can think of it as a full-time profession. Which in turn means, that the quality of the players and the overall game will get better. We’ll see an influx of fans and sponsors that the women’s game truly deserves.

India keenly followed the 2017 Women’s Cricket World Cup, with the final attracting 19.53 million impressions, making it the most watched women’s sporting event in India. It’s a no brainer that we love cricket in India, and the women in blue made us super proud. After the end of the tournament, captain Mithali Raj floated the idea of a women’s T20 league in India, saying that the “time is right”.

The BCCI keeps paying lip service, making public statements about doing more for the women’s game. Now, however, the time is right for them to put their money where their mouth is. Equal pay will follow.