Virat Kohli showed he is more than just a promotional tool for T20 cricket with a blistering knock in the Indian Premier League as the former Indian captain sent out a warning to bowlers ahead of the World Cup in the US and West Indies this year.
Despite playing only two T20 internationals since November 2022, Kohli is expected to make the squad for the June showpiece and he reminded selectors of his skills with a match-winning 77 for Royal Challengers Bengaluru in Monday’s IPL game.
The game was just his second for Bengaluru following a two-month break from cricket, but the 35-year-old looked like he had never been away, helping his team successfully chase down the target of 177 set by Punjab Kings.
“I know my name is nowadays attached to just promoting the game in many parts of the world, when it comes to T20 cricket,” a smiling Kohli said, referring to comments by former England captain Kevin Pietersen during an earlier match.
“But, I’ve still got it, I guess.”
Pietersen, the England batting legend, has earlier said that sport needed Kohli at the T20 World Cup in the US as it’s important to have the game’s biggest star in a new country where the ICC is trying to promote the game.
“The World Cup is happening in the USA. India are playing Pakistan in New York. You’d want someone like a Virat Kohli to help the game grow,” Pietersen said.
But former India coach Ravi Shastri didn’t agree with Pietersen, saying India needed to take a young team to the World Cup because winning the tournament is more important than promoting the sport.
“It’s not about growing the game, it’s about winning the competition. The game will grow wherever it needs to grow. What I’m trying to say is no baggage. And India won in 2007 T20 World Cup with a young side. You want youth. You want flamboyance. You want that dash,” the former India coach had said.
Kohli, meanwhile, batted with a lot of freedom on Monday, laying to rest doubts about his ability to reinvent his game with an ultra aggressive approach against Punjab, stepping out and hitting pace bowlers over cover as opposed to his trademark strokes that race off the turf.
The batting superstar had missed the five-match Test series against England as he was overseas for the birth of his second child.
The long break allowed him to spend much needed quality time with his family and not being recognised on the streets was something that he enjoyed the most.
“We were not in the country. We were at a place where people were not recognising us. Just time together as a family, just to feel normal for two months. For me, for us as a family, it was a surreal experience.
“Of course, having two kids, things become totally different from a family perspective. So just the ability to be together, the connections that you make with your older child, it’s amazing.
“I mean, I couldn’t have been more grateful to God for the opportunity that I got to spend time with my family.”
For Kohli, not being mobbed is a luxury and he loved every bit of his time away from the limelight.
“And yeah, just the place that we were in, I was telling the guys (RCB teammates) that when we came back, the voices back home felt that much louder.
“I couldn’t look up because I was just not used to being called my name for two months. And then immediately you hear these loud noises and then you’re back in it all again.
“But it was beautiful. It’s an amazing experience to just be another person on the road and not be recognised and just carry on about life that normally people would on a daily basis,” he said.