Rise of a King

Mohali and Dhawan miscues. It was as if he miscued to give people an alliteration to begin their write-up with when they try to describe this match. Maybe he would’ve edged it at the Eden Gardens.

Rohit Sharma makes way. He shouldn’t have played it that way. But it’s Rohit Sharma anyway.

Raina is caught behind. Yuvraj Singh struggles. He struggles with his hand eye coordination and even more so with his legs. His cramps neatly cover his apprehensiveness at the crease. The local boy then locomotes his way to the pavilion.

Faulkner who already silenced Mohali once yawps. Shane Watson screams and a piece of ice breaks from the Mountain ridges in Dharamshala.

Mohali turns into a museum. The Punjabis there could hear the sound of lices moving underneath their Turban.

And one man was there in the middle helplessly. Helplessly but not hopelessly.

And he took the baton.

*******

Virat Kohli looked at the Mirror in the Oval dressing room. Something was not right. Maybe he thought he looked fat. Maybe the sweaters made him look fat. Maybe it was a conspiracy by Nike to make him look fat because he ditched them for Adidas. And he hates being out of shape.

He walked into the middle with his team in trouble. It was not new for him . But the slump of form was new though.

It is flabbergasting to think that someone who resisted the temptation to eat sweets to maintain his body couldn’t resist the temptation to go fishing outside the off stump. Maybe he did so because when the ball meets the sweet spot of his bat, it is sweeter than the sweets he sacrificed.

The slips were called into action again. He made the long walk back with his team in further trouble. The Barmy Army mocked him. People questioned his technique. They called his girlfriend a duck and she was roasted on Twitter.

Kohli went inside the dressing room to have an early shower. He removed his sweater. Maybe he wasn’t fat. Maybe this whole scenario was a movie cliché.

He took a bath with the will to power back strongly. Maybe he took a bath in melted steel and some part of it went into his veins.

********

Steve Smith senses an opportunity and calls Hazelwood. Hazelwood built his career and a few houses by bowling in and around that 5th stump line. Kohli flicks him between the deep mid wicket and long on. He gets the Dale Steyn treatment. Hazelwood walks his way back to the run up thinking he should concentrate only on Tests and ODIs sometimes. Because that ball didn’t just go between the fielders. It goes inside Hazelwood’s arteries. It goes inside his brain. And he does the same with Coulter Nile. And the bowler starts to lose his line and length. And Australia start to lose the game.

Faulkner comes next. Kohli has smashed him enough times in his life. He smashes him again. Kohli would go to Cricket Australia’s online store and buy a small Faulkner replica doll for his kid to play. And then he will snatch the doll from his kid and play with it himself. And his kid would cry like how Faulkner did that day.

Kohli himself cries later that night. He cries in elation though. He falls to the ground. As he falls to the ground he thinks about the ball that fell from the air when he miscued his shot in the World Cup semis. He thinks about his massive fall of form 2 years back in England. He thinks about his father.

He rises again. He rises again thinking he has to do this again and again. And he hugs his captain.

Kohli always rises.