Virat Kohli, 2023: The year of Team India's gale force

India Today

14-05-2025

(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated January 8, 2024)Virat Kohli is among those few who have surpassed the predictions, nay demands, of greatness thrust upon them early on in their careers, turning in annual exhibitions of excellence over nearly the span of a generation. His 15 years in international cricket—chubby-cheeked wunderkind, then a youth icon with a sharp goatee, neatly prefiguring his present status as the GOAT—define an epoch. Much like Sachin Tendulkar, whose record Kohli broke this year. That he became the first one to score fifty one-day tons in the presence of his childhood idol seemed like divine providence to a man who has kept his tryst with destiny.advertisementThat wasn't the only time the protg surpassed the master this year. Racking up 765 runs in the World Cup at a Bradmanesque 95.62—a shoo-in for Player of the Tournament—Kohli went past Tendulkar's 2003 record for most runs at cricket's big event. Earlier, he also reached 25,000 international runs, in just 549 innings, 28 less than the previous record held by Tendulkar. The year would eventually see him cross the 26,000 mark—again the fastest to do so.Kohli's career coincides with a period of change in how cricket is played, analysed and consumed. Back in 2008, his debut year, T20—still in its infancy then—barely exacted any influence on the dominant formats. Today, the exigencies of a T20 innings have permeated modern batsmanship, eclipsing more conventional batting styles. Yet, the traditionalist in Kohli swims against the tide. Blending strategic aggression with situational adaptability—each inning a crescendo that braids old-style watchfulness with modern derring-do—he has excelled in a format bristling with heavy-handed machismo.advertisementThe supple wrists come into play in defence and the trademark off-drives; the bottom hand helps swipe balls to the leg-side fence. Then there's the relentless pursuit of singles and twos, a constant flicker. That run-making machinery of many moving parts is what goes into his records—like his unflagging prolificity at IPL.Despite his pursuit of white-ball excellence, his steely desire to excel in cricket's toughest format didn't diminish one bit. Perchance the milestone that most satisfied the true-blue Test romantic in Kohli may have been his Test ton versus Australia in March. His 186 in Ahmedabad, though it came on a featherbed, signalled a self-willed course correction—it was his first Test century after a scarcely-believable gap of three-and-a-half years.The only thing that could possibly have topped that was if his three tons and six 50-plus scores had earned India a World Cup. As the Men in Blue froze against a canny Pat Cummins and his well-knit unit in the final, Kohli's 54 off 63, alongside K.L. Rahul's 66 off 107, came in for plenty of bad press for their timid approach. Those who have seen Virat ply his trade long enough would argue that the one thing the Delhi lad couldn't be faulted with was 'timidness'. Nor did that trademark Kohli aggro ever ebb, as a bust-up against Afghan pacer Naveen-ul-Haq in the IPL showed.advertisementStill, the Kohli of 2023 was a senior statesman, not the untamed fire-eater of the past. At the World Cup, the 35-year-old, dipping into the sageness born of experience, asked the Delhi crowd not to heckle the Afghan for what he might have said eight months ago on a humid night in Lucknow. Quite in the fitness of things. For, if 2022 marked VK's return to form after a 1,020-day-long dry spell, 2023 firmly re-established him among the best all-format batters in world cricket now—a short-arm jab away from a place in an all-time pantheon.Subscribe to India Today MagazineMust Watch