Virat Kohli’s ton and the double hundred that followed on Day 2 against South Africa, did not make much news. For a cricketer who has broken, written and rewritten a plethora of records, it was no surprise that the celebrations after getting to the feats were muted. Fanatics, who are accustomed to his idiosyncrasies, could only stand up to applaud the genius. Having showered all possible praise on the Indian in the past, a sense of repetition, and may I say, boredom, has crept in to that applause.
Until he sprinted for a quick three when batting on 232. After Ravindra Jadeja clipped a delivery by Keshav Maharaj to leg-side, the skipper called back the all-rounder for a third, leaving Sunil Gavaskar (yes, him again) to proclaim, “It looks like he is batting on 32, and not on 232!”
Up until then, Kohli’s innings had seen the regular straight drives and on-drives and the whips – shots that have been packed into highlight reels for well over 11 years now. While his array of shots, his maturity, his calmness and his ability to pace the innings is often spoken about, what often slips under the radar is the player’s incredible fitness levels that has allowed him to reach the pinnacle in the very first place.
His innings today on that front, then, was an exemplary show, as he focused on running the quick singles and the doubles to ease the pressure when boundaries were hard to come by. By hitting 33 fours and two sixes – most of them after he reached his 200 and was looking to add some quick runs before declaring – in his mammoth knock of 254, Kohli also displayed why his all-round game should remain as a case study for the youngsters, who, in the age of T20 and T10 have shifted their focus to big hits instead.
Batting at 4 off his first 24 balls, the captain got his first boundary when he cashed in on a loosener from Maharaj. His first hundred had 14 fours, and his second had 12. In between, he ground it out for six hours under the sweltering conditions at Pune for 96 runs in singles and twos, along with running his partner’s runs as well. There was no six till he reached his double ton, as he focused on playing through the line and down the ground against the new ball and the old.
This is, however, not the first time that Kohli has managed to leave the cricketing realm in awe over his fitness standards. Five of his seven Test double tons have contained no six, as the Delhiite focused on holding his end up sans any rash shot. Playing the perfect textbook-style game, Kohli cut down all the danger shots, making up for it by running every run in his marathon knocks.
But mentally moulding his game a certain way requires immense strength, which can again be attributed to the long hours that Kohli spends at the gym. In an exclusive chat, Sachin Kanvinde, who has trained cricketers – both men and women - reveals that sweating it out and following a strict regime off the field has helped the skipper on the field as well. “When one trains in the gym or on the ground, it is the mind that helps us go that extra mile and complete that extra lap or extra poundage. This gives us confidence to push through our limits on the field as well.”
“What Kohli has that most others lack is discipline. He is not the most talented cricketer around, but by constantly working on his cricket skills and by controlling his diet, he has become a role model for the other athletes, who have now started focusing on their fitness, as much as they do on their skills.”
Elaborating on the need for skill development along with physical training as well, Kanvinde further adds, “A cricketer has to focus on overall development of his fitness like endurance, strength, power, agility, flexibility and conditioning. Kohli does more sports specific drills like combination of endurance, running, sprinting, core strengthening and works more on the range of motion, which helps him perform on the ground.”
Kohli’s Fondness for Fitness After a Below-Par IPL 2010
After coming into the limelight in 2008 as the World Cup winning skipper of the Under-19 team, Kohli, then a chubby Punjabi kid who adored his butter chicken, failed to leave much of a mark in the following three seasons of the Indian Premier League. He averaged just 15 in the inaugural season, 22.36 the following year and 27.90 in 2010. This is when, like an epiphany, the importance of fitness struck, and since then, there has been no looking back. His dedication towards the gym paralleled his upward surge on the field, and as he became an enigma from a talented star, the world woke to appreciate and give due to the role of fitness in a player’s career.
Ten of Kohli’s 26 Test tons have been “daddy hundreds” – of scores of 150 or more. Thrice, he has been dismissed in the 140s, and one in the 130s. Seven of the ten times that he has crossed 150, he has gone to get a double ton. While the numbers are indeed jaw-dropping and give a reflection of his skills, what it fails to reflect is that they have been a product of his monk-like focus to be the best in the world.
In an interview earlier, Kohli had spoken about how the lack of fear in the eyes of the rivals in 2010 towards him when he walked out to bat forced him to change his work ethic. “I didn’t want to be just another player and I wanted to make an impact. I wanted that when I walk in the opposition should think that we need to get this guy out or else we will lose the game. And if I don’t want to be that guy, then there is something wrong in my head.”
Almost a decade later, oppositions fear him, his countrymen respect him and his fans adore him. All it needed was shift in mindset and the unmoving will to conquer it all.
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