Thursday 20 / March / 2025
If there was an International Cricket Council regulation that granted a touring team the right to pick the captain of their rivals, Virat Kohli would have lost his job to Ajinkya Rahane even before he had walked out of the field at Ranchi with a shoulder injury. It’s hilarious to even dream of such a wish being made by any touring team, but the Rahane number topping the Australian charts makes you wonder what it’s all about.
Rahane led the team from the front at Dharamsala to take India to an impressive victory and he deserved the praise that came his way. There’s nothing wrong with the genuine appreciation of it coming from former Australian greats like Ian Chappell and Michael Clarke, and we could laugh off Mitchell Johnson’s tweet that Rahane should stay as captain but, just as we do that, we might get a bit confused about the enthusiasm displayed by Steve Smith and Darren Lehmann.
Even as Kohli was nursing his injured shoulder and when there were concerns about his fitness for the final Test, Smith was happily explaining to the media how cool it was to deal with Rahane. He even seemed to suggest India wouldn’t miss Kohli at Dharamsala. Post-match, Lehmann was “too impressed with Rahane’s captaincy” and when you get to read the comments made by Johnson along with similar sentiments expressed in the Australian media, you couldn’t help wonder if there was a method in this Australian madness. A divide-and-rule kind of method, perhaps.
Rahane was not doing all right in the series against England and made his way out of the team with an injury. His replacement Karun Nair grabbed the opportunity by scoring a triple century, making it almost ridiculous for anyone even to suggest dropping him in favour of Rahane for the one-off Test match against Bangladesh. But that’s what happened: Karun warmed the bench to make room for Rahane. That was not just because one game doesn’t overshadow two years of hard work—but because one man, Kohli the captain, was firmly behind Rahane. Seldom have we got to see the Australians queuing up to celebrate an Indian player, so let’s enjoy the Rahane trick being played out by Smith and Co while it lasts.
Kohli is no saint. Nor is Smith. But the irony is that Kohli has been made out to be the villain and Smith the hero by the Australian media. There is not anything—bad—that Kohli did and Smith didn’t do. If Kohli engaged in sledging, so did Smith. The Australian captain dropped a slur when Murali Vijay had claimed a catch which on replay suggested was grounded, and even the Australian media had to admit that Vijay might not have been trying to cheat. Smith got trapped plump and looked at the dressing room for help in obvious violation of the rules but we were told it was just a moment of brain fade. It’s all right to breach the rules, say anything you like and drop the word as long as you say sorry at the end of it all. The logic is simple: they set the limits and it’s for others to bat, bowl, field and sledge within their limits.
Smith is not alone when it comes to feeling the urge to say sorry. Brad Hodge took the opportunity provided by Smith to apologise to “the people of India, cricket fans, the Indian national cricket team and particularly Virat Kohli” for his suggestion that Kohli may have skipped the Dharamsala Test to keep himself in shape for the IPL season. A massive apology that could define the scopes and the limits for the rest of the world in all matters related to similar incidents for now and the future. March, or March 30, as Ravichandran Ashwin would suggest, could now be observed as World Apology Month.
If Kohli wanted to preserve himself for the 10th season of the IPL, the best way to do that was by way of staying out of the rest of the Ranchi Test. Instead, he came out to bat with an injured shoulder and was out on the field until the last ball was bowled on day five pushing for an elusive victory. To suggest that Kohli will put club before country was not right.
By the way, Kohli was the highest paid cricketer in the world in 2016, earning $25 million, and his yearly income is predicted to touch or breach the $30 million mark in 2017. The only Australians among the top 10 list of highest paid cricketers are David Warner and Smith, but their yearly earnings are just $5.5million and $2.5million respectively. Kohli need not have to front up in the IPL like many foreign cricketers turning up for the two-month festival do. Incidentally, the reason behind Hodge’s apology is rumoured to be a fear of losing his lucrative job with the Gujarat Lions.
How much Australia despised Kohli was evident from the way the media there tried to throw muck on the Indian skipper. At first, they tried to focus on Kohli’s batting failure but as they realised it was tough to sell their rubbish about a player who has knocked up four double hundred in a row, they got to the point of seeing snakes. He was called all kinds of names, from the leader of the snakes to the Trump with a bat. Hopefully, the long break before the ODI and T20 series would help some guys Down Under recharge their imagination.
Kohli is no saint, but he’s more sinned against than sinning.
