{"id":600,"date":"2016-05-24T06:44:06","date_gmt":"2016-05-24T01:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jodi365.com\/singledout\/?p=600"},"modified":"2020-10-19T18:07:55","modified_gmt":"2020-10-19T12:37:55","slug":"virat-kohli-man-of-the-hour-hero-worship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jodi365.com\/singledout\/virat-kohli-man-of-the-hour-hero-worship\/","title":{"rendered":"Virat Kohli and Our Propensity for Cringe-Inducing Hero Worship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part 1.
\nA love for the gentleman’s game<\/h2>\n

I love cricket.<\/p>\n

Like many boys growing up in India in the 80s, surely, I dreamed of playing for India. \u00a0I enjoyed opening the batting and Sunil Gavaskar<\/a> was a boyhood idol. \u00a0I was about 12 then. \u00a0Of course, when it became obvious, within a couple of years, that if I had to get anywhere in life, it would not be because of any world-class hand-eye coordination or skills with a bat, my life’s path took another course, away from the world of sports.<\/p>\n

Still, the affliction had not entirely left me.<\/p>\n

I got to watch India’s nail-biting 1987 World Cup opener<\/a> against Australia at Chennai’s Chepauk stadium, and I still remember the pervasive sense of gloom when Graham Gooch’s England swept us out of the semi-finals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In subsequent years, as competitive as college was, academically, I was not above going late to class occasionally, just so that I could linger in my hostel’s common room<\/em> and take in more of an ongoing cricket match.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed playing cricket regularly at IIT-Madras, at the inter-hostel level \u2013 30-overs-a-side affairs on matted wickets \u2013 and even earned a call-up to open the batting for the Institute team at the inter-university level.<\/p>\n

\"IIT<\/p>\n

Image credit: ESPNcricinfo<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

An enduring memory from that tournament is of sweetly timing a fast bowler’s ball through midwicket for a boundary, only to have my stumps shattered by the next ball. \u00a0I haven’t admitted this to anyone before: That delivery came in\u00a0so quickly that I don’t recall seeing the ball rushing in between bat and pad.<\/p>\n

It is just as well that I was more into weightlifting by then \u2013 it was hard to haul heavy barbells overhead, but at least I could see the damn things move, when they would indeed move. \u00a0I also had the sense to remind myself that I was at best an athletic student, with only occasional delusions of a professional career in sports.<\/p>\n

The love for cricket, however, persisted, even as I relocated to the US, by the mid-1990s, for graduate studies. \u00a0Those were the early days of the Internet and Cricinfo.com was new on the scene. \u00a0It was an easy way, especially for those of us stats-obsessed cricket fanatics, to follow live scores from the convenience of our workstations. \u00a0To think that barely 15 years earlier, the only available option at times (as when India played in the West Indies) was to follow All India Radio’s audio commentary on a handheld transistor radio<\/a>. \u00a0(I feel ancient just typing transistor radio. \u00a0When was the last time you used that in a sentence, if at all?)<\/p>\n

Old habits die hard, and to this day I continue to visit the site to follow Indian cricket. \u00a0It’s a sobering thought as I estimate\u00a0how much time I may have spent following live scorecard updates over the last 20 years \u2013 across Iowa City, Ann Arbor, Seattle, Chicago, and Chennai, without counting site visits while on the road. Cricinfo may have changed hands a few times, but adding to my abiding sense of loyalty is the fact one of its co-founders, Badri Seshadri<\/a>, was a kind college senior and hostelmate.<\/p>\n

The procrastinator in me should be grateful that my passion for cricket has dimmed with time. \u00a0It has also helped to be able to see professional cricket today, thanks to the dogged matchfixing and spotfixing scandals and the huge monies at stake in the sport, more as WWE-style entertainment.<\/p>\n

But watch I still do, occasionally.<\/p>\n

Part 2.
\nCricket as religion. Gods and iconoclasts.<\/h2>\n

After all, cricket wasn’t just my love; it was my religion. \u00a0Unlike millions of others, though, many of whom would excitedly wave a sign, “Cricket Is My Religion and Tendulkar is My God,” Sachin Tendulkar wasn’t “God” to me.<\/p>\n

He was just someone I admired, greatly, especially for the dignified way in which he conducted himself on the field and off. \u00a0When he would stride out to bat, carrying the dreams and expectations of millions of Indian cricket fans, those hopes would include mine.<\/p>\n

\"Tendulkar<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Guppydas<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Case in point: At the time of the 2003 India-Australia World Cup final<\/a>, I was excited to be able to take in a live telecast, through the night, at a Kiwi sports bar near my apartment in Seattle. \u00a0With India set to chase a stiff target, my hopes for an India victory too rested on Tendulkar’s shoulders. \u00a0However, when he miscued a pull and got out in the very first over, I gave up and headed right home. \u00a0It was 4 a.m. and I didn’t fancy feeling both sleepy and<\/em> depressed as I continued to watch.<\/p>\n

Time catches up with all. \u00a0Even gods retire. \u00a0Tendulkar may be transitioning into the role of elder statesman, but fortunately a cricket-crazy country has not had to search far or long for another hero to worship.<\/p>\n

Tendulkar’s heir apparent, Virat Kohli, has been on a hot streak in recent months. \u00a0Even more remarkable than the frequency and pace at which he has been racking up good scores and man-of-the-match awards, is how quickly he is being elevated to the role of demi-god.<\/p>\n

Kohli may be cut from a cloth different from Tendulkar’s, yet I admire him too, for possibly being the best chaser of targets in the history of the game. \u00a0I also see him as being representative, for better or worse, of a new, confident\u2014often brash\u2014India. (Sourav Ganguly and his brazen, bare-chested decorum-be-damned celebration at Lord’s, may have been a harbinjer of things to come.) \u00a0Cricinfo puts it well when it introduces Kohli, in his player profile, as a typical modern-day cricketer who plays the game aggressively.<\/p>\n