Cricket Legend Kohli Turns His Back on Team India

 

Former team-mates will miss their talismanic leader in Test series in England this summer, although he will not be far away

The build-up to India’s series against England has focused as much on players who are not on tour as those who are.

Two grand old oaks, Rohit Sharma and Ravichandran Ashwin, have retired, and leave a shadow. But those shadows are nowhere as vast as Virat Kohli’s – especially as it is cast from so nearby.

Kohli is in London, where he is now based with his wife Anushka Sharma, the Bollywood actress, and their young family.

Kohli, 36, has always liked touring England for the quiet it offers. During a tour of England, the couple have often been seen dining in the best Indian restaurants, largely undisturbed by fans.

They are thought to reside in Notting Hill where they have taken refuge for some years, including when Kohli missed the series against England last year for personal reasons. Occasionally, a picture, captured by a fan, pops up of them online, but largely they are left to their own devices.

He has even been seen travelling on the tube, reading the newspaper. The idea of Kohli using public transport in India is unimaginable.

They are intensely private people, attempting to live a quiet life, which does not sit easily with their status as two of the biggest superstars in India.

To put Kohli’s level of fame into perspective, he has 274 million followers on Instagram. Just 12 people in the world have more than that, and only two of them are sportspeople in Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. His wife Sharma has 69.7 million, too.

Kohli’ status in India is in rarefied territory with only Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni, two other former captains, remotely close to the same bracket of significance.

Kohli and his wife Sharma are major celebrities in India 

So intense is their popularity, that India can be something of a gilded cage for them, with completing daily tasks and travelling around freely incredibly difficult.

Even foreign players are often mobbed whenever they are outside the hotels where they stay in. Last year, on England’s tour of India, the tourists were in Chandigarh between Tests. I popped into a shopping centre next to the team hotel, and spotted Ben Stokes and Mark Wood in there as well, with caps pulled low over their faces. Within a couple of minutes, they were spotted, and crowded by fans.

And Buttler is well placed to comment, given that he is a star in his own right in India due to his IPL achievements but could probably walk anonymously down a high street in the UK without any issue.

An extreme and tragic example of India’s relationship with cricket came earlier this month. When Kohli’s team Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) won the Indian Premier League title for the first time, so many people turned up to the hastily arranged victory parade that there was a horrific crush that killed 11 people and injured many more.

“I don’t think we can quite understand the level of interest and the stardom these guys have,” said Jos Buttler this week, speaking on his podcast with Stuart Broad, of India’s cricketers.

RCB’s popularity is an extension of Kohli’s popularity, and, sadly, many of those people will have turned up just hoping to get a glimpse of him.

Kohli’s next cricketing assignment will not be until August, when India’s ODI team – that is the only format he still plays internationally – tour Bangladesh, although Middlesex have publicly expressed interest in signing him given he is in the area and, essentially, free.

So, Kohli will have a bizarre relationship with this box-office series. So close, yet so far. Available, but absent. And it is made all the stranger by the fact that he retired as Test cricket’s greatest advocate, making quite the proclamation upon finally winning the IPL.

“This moment is right up there with the best moments in my career. But it still ranks five levels below Test cricket,” Kohli said, risking the ire of loyal RCB fans. “If you want to earn respect, take up Test cricket”.

On Monday, it was reported that Kohli hosted a number of India players, including the new leadership team of Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant, at his home. But, largely, he is keeping his head down.

Kohli was conspicuous by his absence at Lord’s over the last week or so. The great and the good of the global game descended on the home of cricket, including Tendulkar, who also lives in London to get away from the limelight, but not Kohli, who was at neither the World Test Championship final or the MCC’s World Cricket Connects symposium, where the future of the longest format was discussed at length, despite being just a couple of miles away.

His retirement has naturally piqued the interest of broadcasters including Sky, but it quickly became clear that a significant commentary gig was of no interest.

There is still hope that Kohli could be persuaded to do a day, or even just a session, on air before the series is out, particularly at either of the London venues in Lord’s or the Oval.

If he does make an appearance, it will certainly divert some of the attention away from the cricket, which is something Kohli is all too aware of.

India vs England Live Cricket Score, 1st Test Day 1 (India National Cricket Team vs England National Cricket Team): 

Yashasvi Jaiswal scored a fine half-century to lead India’s recovery after lunch break. KL Rahul and Jaiswal led a superb start for India in Leeds with the pair adding 91 runs after being put in to bat first at Headingley. Brydon Carse broke the partnership with the scalp of Rahul on 42. Debutant B Sai Sudharsan then made a four-ball duck as India reached 92/2 at the end of the first session.

India start their ICC World Test Championship campaign in Leeds from today as they face hosts England in the first game of a five-match series. India have a young captain in Shubman Gill and a squad that appears vastly inexperienced compared to their opponents thanks to the absence of star batters Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. England, despite the home advantage and an aggressive batting line-up, will be cautious as their pace attack has been depleted thanks to the injuries to first-choice stars Jofra Archer, Mark Wood and Gus Atkinson.