Virat Kohli: good at captaincy, useless at endings

IPL, T20 and now Tests: cricket’s biggest star has yet to have a curtain call befitting his achievements

India’s Virat Kohli celebrates the wicket of South Africa’s Kyle Verreynne on the first day of the third Test against South Africa on January 12, 2022. Reuters

Kohli top-scored with 79 in the first innings of the third Test against South Africa in Cape Town. Reuters

Kohli congratulates Rassie van der Dussen after South Africa beat India in the Test series on Friday. AP

Indian captain Virat Kohli congratulates South Africa’s Temba Bavuma on hitting the winning runs in the third Test. AP

India’s Virat Kohli and Rishabh Pant claim for a wicket against South Africa. Reuters

Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara during the third Test against South Africa. Reuters

Virat Kohli celebrates after Kannur Rahul takes the wicket of Aiden Markram during the third Test match against South Africa. AP

Kohli plays a shot during the third day of the third Test. AP

Rishabh Pant is congratulated by India captain Kohli. AFP

Virat Kohli plays a shot. Getty

Given he has been the most compelling box-office hit in cricket for most of the past decade, it is surprising quite how bad Virat Kohli is at endings.

He has been scripting a number of different ones over the recent past. He has not nailed one of them yet. Wasn’t he always supposed to be a great finisher?

It all started back in September, when he announced he would be stepping down as captain of India’s T20 side. That was followed a few days later by him releasing a video from a net session in Dubai saying he would be doing similar in his role with Royal Challengers Bangalore.

His side were still vying for honours in the Indian Premier League at that stage. It could have worked as a spur for them, one last push for that first title to send off their talisman after his years of service.

Then it all fell flat. They made it to the playoffs at least. But in the first eliminator final in Sharjah, Bangalore barely threw a punch against Kolkata Knight Riders. Their ending was meek.

Neither did the advanced notice he had provided work in international T20 cricket. His India side – labelled favourites, despite going into the tournament running on fumes after the surplus of cricket they had already played – were mediocre at the T20 World Cup in the UAE.

India were thrashed at historic levels by Pakistan, which basically accounted for them. In the wake of that loss, Kohli launched an admirably spiky defence of the players who had suffered obscene abuse.

Was his combativeness at that point a manifestation of the anger he was feeling that his chance at a trophy was slipping through his grasp? Hardly. He has always been that way. Anger, resentment, discontentment fuelled most of his best times, too.

And now, this. There was no advanced notice this time. No teasers. In fact, given he had cited a desire to excel in the long format – his favourite – Kohli’s decision to pass on the Test captaincy this week was a bombshell.

In an Instagram post punctuated with two exclamation marks, Rohit Sharma, who assumed the T20 job from Kohli, professed himself “shocked”. He was not the only one.

After all, Kohli had said in September the reason for sidelining T20 leadership was: “I feel I need to give myself space to fully ready to lead the Indian team in Test and ODI cricket.”

Kohli’s commitment to Test cricket, both in deeds and – often just as importantly – words has been vital to a format which seems to be permanently on life support.

He has coloured Test cricket more than anyone else in its recent past. His side won all over the world (even if he was absent when they had arguably their finest success, in Australia).

So, what changed in the four months since September? The facts are that, in that time, India have won a home Test series against New Zealand, and lost one away in South Africa.

Maybe predictably, it all ended in a stream of vitriol. Kohli had reached a level of self-parody by screaming apoplectically at an inanimate object in his penultimate day in office. Prickly to the end, he ranted at a stump-microphone after Dean Elgar’s scarcely believable LBW reprieve during the Proteas run-chase.

Less predictably, South Africa made it through. To have the full stop applied to Kohli’s highly-successful stint in charge by a loss to an inexperienced South Africa side light on household names feels unbecoming.

OK, so nobody has died. But for one of the most glittering stars of the country that gave the world Bollywood, it might have been fair to expect a happier ending.