A leading man facing unprecedented pressure extending beyond the field, a coach looking to kickstart the stint by shedding his good boy image, and a buoyant pacer primed to breathe fire into the attack against an opposition led by a dogged man ready for tough contests and tougher conversations at home.
Just before the 2008 under-19 World Cup, the national junior selectors, in an inspired move, had decided on a leadership change. They replaced Tanmay Srivastava, a soft spoken Lucknow opener who gracefully carried his city’s gentility to the cricket field, with Virat Kohli, a West Delhi boy not known to give undue respect, or an undeserving inch, to rivals. What had then seemed like a minor tweak to the junior team, would prove to be the crucial nudge that gave Indian cricket a complete image-makeoverimage-makeoverKohli had you at hello. He oozed class, came across as a born-leader and even his anger was endearing. It was amusing to watch the short, well-fed, chubby-cheeked teenager stand up to the taller, broader and leaner boys from England, Australia, South Africa. This one time at the team hotel, before a crucial game against England, he would bump into a rival bowler, who was allegedly staring at him. Kohli didn’t flinch, and of course, he reacted. “Hey, what are you looking at?” he blurted out. The unexpected snub would startle the English boy. No ingrained inferiority, no language handicap, the new kid on the block wasn’t overburdened to be the archetypal, well-mannered Indian cricketer.
At the end of the rain-impacted low scoring tense final against South Africa, Kohli would get hailed as a keeper of lost causes and also get a reputation of volatility. A certain Bradley Barnes should be credited for giving the handful few present at that obscure cricketing venue – Kinrara Academy Oval in Kuala Lumpur – a glimpse of the futurefutureBetween innings, with India out for just 159, South African wicket-keeper Barnes would jump the gun. He would take a dig at India’s low score and also undermine their victory chances. Those bytes would fly to the Indian dressing room, acting as an ember to ignite the fires inside the Indian captain. Those in the dressing room that day speak of the young captain’s rousing speech where he extolled his team-mates to turn their collective anger into advantage.Every South African batter to walk in that day got a hostile reception, an undignified farewell and an earful all through their innings. Kohli would explode at the fall of the last wicket. True to the script it would be Barnes. Watch the old videos, Little Kohli was much more animated.
Coaches and managers on that trip still talk about the young captain’s mid-inning motivation. Kohli reminded his boys that they were being undermined by their rivals, the skills that gave them courage to dream about graduating to the next level, were being questioned. They needed to fight. It touched a chord, kicked in the adrenalin. This was probably the first of the many “Us vs Them” addresses Kohli would give in India blues.
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