Virat Kohli spoke engagingly for 10 minutes before sweeping out of the room and down the wide concrete stairs at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, trailed by an ever-thickening swarm of hangers-on, and drawing from somewhere a Beatlemania-style barrage of squeals as he emerged briefly into the light before heading out to the middle for practice.
It seems fair to say there is not another cricketer quite like Kohli, if only because there never has been. Even other modern Indian heroes – the endlessly revered Sachin Tendulkar, the punchier, poppier MS Dhoni – have been distinct. Even Kohli, set as ever on a furious upward curve, has never been at quite the same state-of-the-art level of Kohli-ness, preparing to take the field as India’s official one-day captain for the first time and unchallenged as the most thoroughly glossed and superstar-ish athlete cricket has produced.
England’s players have already suggested that they do not have any special plans for Kohli on the one-day leg of this tour. It is to be hoped this is simply pre-series bluff. Not having special plans for Kohli: this doesn’t sound like a plan at all. Even in the gloomy concrete press-room hutch at the Maharashtra stadium there was an undimmable high wattage about India’s captain.
The fittest man in cricket positively glows these days, charming his way through the questions like some preternaturally glossy creature from the over-world. It is tempting to compare Kohli to a Premier League footballer, but he is more like the best American sports figures, willing to talk not just about the game ahead, but also about tactics and stats and team-mates and fears and hopes and feelings. It is a brilliant lesson in how to be a star.
Kohli was asked if he would feel the burden of captaining in all three formats. “I haven’t felt the burden at all,” he replied, looking, if not the least burdened late-20s megastar in the world, then certainly up there. “I have felt in the past people have created limitations in their own head, in terms of what they can or can’t do,” he added, a reply that seemed to catch something of his spaceman qualities, the sense of a cricketer who really has carried a clear, light space around him for the past few years.
When Kohli walks out to bat against England here on Sunday, he will do so as part of that modern breed of elite 50-over batsmen. Only the greatest of them all, Viv Richards – with smaller bats, bigger boundaries and against the dominant culture – has scored as heavily and as quickly in 50-over cricket. For now, Kohli is part of breakaway group, along with AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla, Dhoni and others, who have taken ODI batting to new levels with averages over 50, strike rates in the 90s or near, and a sense of other gears and modes beyond the accepted norms.
Right now, Kohli is operating at a rare level. In his past 13 ODIs he has 961 runs at 87.36, with four hundreds at a strike rate around 90, all against the world’s other top teams, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. In all forms of international cricket since last October, he has 1,240 runs at 112.
India have a fine one-day batting lineup, albeit with some places still settling down. In a slight moment of double-take, Yuvraj Singh and Dhoni will bat at five and six. The hugely talented KL Rahul could open. But the captain remains the real key.
Not that England will approach this series in anything other than their new fearless mode. They can even claim to have dismissed Kohli for a first-ball duck – caught Tredwell, bowled Bresnan – the last time they faced him in an ODI, in India four years ago. Watching the current one-day team practising their well-honed range hitting in the middle, sending the occasional ball clanging into the seats, it was clear what a grizzled bunch of white-ball global travellers these players are now.
Sunday’s opening ODI will be England’s 28th game of short-form cricket in less than a year, a period of rapid and ongoing evolution. Perhaps the most surprising part of the pre-match press conference was the culture-switch of hearing Eoin Morgan talk about England’s commitment to playing fearless attacking cricket, while Kohli mused on the need to rein things in during the middle overs and build a platform
“The group of players we have are very outgoing, they’re very expansive and explosive,” Morgan said. “They do what they say they’re going to do and stick to their natural game, which is quite an aggressive game.”
Indian pitches and Indian expertise are another challenge, although the need to attack against the spinners might force these England batsmen into playing slow bowling rather better than the Test team. Sam Billings and Jonny Bairstow, top-scorers in the two warm-up games, are likely to miss out while Liam Plunkett is fit to play.
Likely England team for first ODI v India, Sunday 15 January
Roy, Hales, Root, Morgan, Stokes, Buttler, Ali, Woakes, Rashid, Willey, Plunkett
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