Virat Kohli: The perfect chase master

Dubai: For an eternity now, Virat Kohli has been the most consummate chaser. A chase of ambitions and aspirations, of dreams and goals. A chaser of excellence, if not perfection because perfection is a perception, a mirage, a philosophy, a mantra, not a tangible reality.

Oh, and a chaser of totals and targets.

What Kohli doesn’t have to chase is a place in history. That he has secured ages back, on the back of extraordinary deeds for a sustained period of time. He is happy to sit back and let others do that chasing. But totals and targets? Now, that’s another matter altogether.

The legend of Kohli the ultimate chaser – because that’s what he is, as the accompanying boxes will prove, if proof was required – took early shape in, coincidentally, his first Champions Trophy, in South Africa in Johannesburg. On a spiteful surface at the Bullring in 2009 where India and West Indies, both already eliminated, were battling for pride, Kohli made a measured unbeaten 79, accounting for 60.8% of India’s tally of 130 for three. It’s a knock that has slipped under the radar; Kohli was playing just his ninth ODI, a greenhorn in a formidable batting line-up.

Since then, the radar hasn’t been able to ignore him. In Asia and outside, against pace and spin, on flat tracks and seam-friendly decks, against attacks menacing and far less so, he has zeroed in on targets relentlessly. With an assurance and an authority that seems to scream, ‘The pressure of a chase? What on earth is that?’

Sachin Tendulkar, inarguably the greatest batter of his generation, loved the freedom of batting first, of setting the tone, of being in a proactive rather than a reactive state. His record in a chase isn’t trifling – a record 8,720 runs in 232 matches runs at 42.33, with 17 hundreds. But it was while batting first that he stood out. Thirty-two hundreds in 221 matches, average 47.34.

Kohli swings the other way. In all chases, he averages 64.50 in 159 games. In successful chases, that shoots up to 89.51 in 100 matches. In successful chases of 300-plus totals (11 times), the average is a ridiculous 124.75, the strike-rate a whopping 127.95. The more daunting the target, the more intense the Kohli riposte. Make him chase 400, someone. Maybe we will still get an ODI double-hundred out of him.

The first to admit that he has been fortunate to be surrounded by some of the greatest white-ball players of all time – Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni in one era, Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan in another, sometimes many of these big names together—Kohli will be delighted that in this elite company, he has been able to more than hold his own for a decade and a half. Today, no one instills as much confidence (in his colleagues) and as much dread (in the opposition) when batting second in a 50-over game than the virtuoso from Delhi.

You could see the breath whooshing out of Glenn Maxwell at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Tuesday night when, specifically positioned at short extra-cover, he dropped Kohli, on 51, off the left-arm spin of Cooper Connolly. Maxwell knew – he didn’t suspect, he knew – that there would be the ultimate price to pay for that uncharacteristic lapse. You don’t make such mistakes as giving Kohli a ‘life’ in a run-chase in a big game and live to tell the tale. True to Maxwell’s expectations, Kohli sealed the chase and delivered the victory wrapped nicely in a box with a thank you note though for once, he wasn’t there when the tape was breasted.

India have chased twice, successfully, in this Champions Trophy – 242 against Pakistan, 265 against Australia. Kohli was 100 not out in the first instance, he made 84 in the second. Average 184, strike-rate 88, 12 fours. And, note this, 102 singles and 17 twos. This man is 36, you know. What’s he doing, running 102 singles?

Because that’s what the conditions have dictated. Free-flowing strokeplay is a casualty of the lack of pace on the pitches, and a heavy outfield courtesy a sandy base means there isn’t the value for strokes you’d find in India or in most other parts of the world. But Kohli isn’t about boundaries alone. He is a seer, seeker and finder of gaps, a manipulator of the cricket ball with hard hands primarily, but also with a deftness of touch that doesn’t get the credit he deserves. He works out bowlers and areas and scoring options and required rates with the efficiency but not the mechanicalness of a computer. If there is a more complete chaser, will they please stand up and identify themselves?