The King and the Hitman

As captains, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma were like fire and ice, chalk and cheese, but united by the desire to make their respective Test sides the best in the business

- R Kaushik

FOR more than a decade and a half, their cricketing journeys ran parallelly, but unlike railway tracks that never meet, they also remained inextricably intertwined. Rohit Sharma was the first to break through, wearing a T20 World Cup winner’s medal nearly a year before Virat Kohli first represented India. But it was Kohli who shaded the subsequent exchanges until the Mumbaikar found a second wind in the wake of one of the more far-reaching decisions to impact Indian cricket.

As personalities, India’s two immediate former captains who together have ridden into the Test sunset—isn’t there poetic justice in that, never mind that it leaves Indian cricket, indeed Test cricket, poorer for their absence?—couldn’t be any more different. Kohli, from West Delhi, is the perfect exemplar of the saying: ‘You can take the boy out of Delhi, but you can’t take Delhi out of the boy.’ Brash, aggressive, intense and unapologetic, he redefined his country’s approach to the longer format, ruthless to a fault in his desire to take his side to unprecedented heights away from home. Rohit, genteel and laidback and comfortable in his own skin, inherited a battle-hardened bunch from his predecessor and allowed them to carve their own path, secure in the knowledge that the skipper had their backs. Fire, and ice. Boisterous, and self-contained. Chalk, and cheese. But united by the desire to make their respective sides the best in the business.