Virat Kohli vs BCCI: The Fuming battle…

In the last decade or so, Virat Kohli has endorsed various brands, services and ideologies. However, one thing that King Kohli has promoted the most is the word “bold”. What is boldness? Boldness is how he likes to play his cricket and captain his team. Bold is also the agenda of his beloved IPL team, Royal Challengers Bangalore. 

Since Kohli has turned into Brand Kohli, boldness has changed its meaning. The connotation of boldness can be negative or positive, depending on whether you are a Kohli or an Indian cricket fanatic. 

The ‘Chasemaster’, sometimes, has the tendency to go over the line. Be it giving an extra mile worth of gas to some players or hanging the swords on some other’s neck. Kohli and his decisions vary from player to player and person to person. 

Be it about dropping the experienced duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja for the two young wrist-spinners. Then bringing back the orthodox spin at the expense of the match-winning partnership of Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav. 

His unnecessary tinkering isn’t just a time thing. The batters have also suffered bruising from Kohli’s bold captaincy tactics. Ask Ambati Rayudu or his 3-D glasses. Ask Karun Nair who just made his Test debut to score a triple ton and then to only vanish. Ask Karn Sharma who got a nod ahead of Ashwin at Adelaide 2014, but never played for India again. 

There are obviously some remarkable twitches Kohli brought into the system. His hunger to push for that one extra mile is next to none. His fitness standards and demand from the other players as well. He has also formed a fast-bowling attack that has fuel unlike any former attack has ever had. His backing has helped the coffee boys, KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya (Okay, not Hardik) to become world-beaters. 

However, his bold style of leadership has always been on the radar. His passion for Test cricket, at least, has done wonders for Men in Blue. His passion for the longest format can also be seen as a full-fledged Hollywood drama, which premiered at Adelaide first. 

From the word go, his intent was to go for the win, instead of looking to draw the game - unlike the previous captains would have done. But then comes his problem, a problem of over-doing things. His passion has helped Team India win the two-Test series Down Under. But his habit of over-doing has cost them series in England and South Africa. 

The conflict between passion and over-doing things goes on and on.. but let's not dig too much into that. 

Kohli and his captaincy becoming a force collided with Ravi Shastri’s reign in the dressing room. Both him and Shastri are no bullshit, just business kind of men. That’s the only and prime reason why the Kohli-Shastri stand lasted so long. The coach started his tenure as Team Director in 2014, after the T20 World Cup. 

The Kohli and Shastri marriage was an instant hit. Fire and fire matched and it became a blockbuster from the word go. At that time, Kohli was just the boss of the Test team. The Kohli-Shastri alliance blossomed in the longest format only during its nascent stage. Men in Blue won the “historic” Test series in Sri Lanka in 2015, which many former captains could not do, under their celebrated reign. They won a couple of home series too and burst celebratory firecrackers after such victories as if they would have brought Kohinoor back home. 

However, this haughty attitude was tolerated but it would become a pain in many people’s backsides shortly afterwards. 

Shastri got a promotion from Team Director to Head Coach, but that didn’t last too long. After India lost the semifinal of the 2016 T20 WC, Shastri’s term ended. The team got Anil Kumble instead of the mingler. However, Kohli had a soft corner for his ex-partner, which later got exposed after India’s horrible exit from Champion Trophy 2017. 

With no real BCCI in power, the skipper played his card of favouritism and convinced CAC - comprising Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar & VVS Laxman - to replace Kumble with his adored Shastri.

As a unit, the team won countless bilaterals but somehow lost those all-important 45-minute junctures in the do-or-die matches. These mistakes were spared for the first time, it was ignored the second time, and the third and fourth time as well. But soon it became a ticking bomb…

BCCI were the hosts of the 2021 T20 WC, with the tournament being later hosted in UAE and Oman. It was the tournament when that ticking bomb eventually burst. Before the tournament, Kohli announced his resignation from the coveted post of T20I captain and Shastri too was going to leave the job after the mega tournament. 

One would have thought that it would be the last dance for the duo, but it became an untearable chapter of their reign. The hosts were out of the tournament after their first two matches, courtesy of Pakistan and New Zealand. The former loss wasn’t just India's first defeat against their arch-rivals in an ICC game, but it was the main catalyst that made the ‘King’ a vulnerable figure in Indian cricket.

In the last 14 years, Indian cricket has seen two unimaginable exits from ICC’s tournaments. In 2007, it saw the exit of Greg Chappell. 14 years later, it saw boldness turn into arrogance for Indian cricket. 

As a brand, boldness was tumbling. The great ‘Kohli Aura’ faded. When he announced his exit from the T20I’s captaincy, he also claimed that he would continue as the leader of ODI and Tests. However, he was unceremoniously removed from ODI captaincy. 

This removal erupted a whole new episode in Indian cricket. Kohli’s dethroning was a mere part of a press release that was meant to announce the Test squad for South Africa. 

The President of BCCI, Sourav Ganguly gave a statement citing that he personally asked the captain not to quit the job, but days later Kohli himself rubbished Dada’s comments. 

This time he took on Ganguly. But Ganguly? Anybody who has followed Dada’s career knows that except for a bouncer aimed at his head, the southpaw always believes in counter-attacking everything. 

The King has taken on many before, but no one tries to lock horns against the ‘Prince of Indian cricket’. The titles and past may suggest that Kohli is a stronger figure, but his stocks have fallen tremendously of late. 

One reason for his fall may be the drought of his 71st hundred. But whosoever has seen Kohli rise from the ashes knows, the only thing that he loves more than anything is meeting the cherry off the middle and answering back his critics. 

In all the previous bouts, Kohli has a huge margin of a zillion to zilch over the Indian board. But they have never had Dada as their supreme leader. Hence, this battle has various twists awaiting a climax of a Hollywood movie has. So who will win this final bout? Kohli or Ganguly… or Indian cricket?