THE END OF AN AURA

Virat Kohli walks away from the format he made cool, leaving behind a lasting legacy and some speculation, too

- AYAZ MEMON

FOR SOMEONE WHO strutted on cricket fields across the world with gladiatorial aplomb, Virat Kohli's retirement from Tests was uncharacteristically undramatic. “I'll always look back at my Test career with a smile. #269, signing off,” is how he ended his poignant but sedate post on Instagram.

Kohli's cricketing brilliance and incandescent personality outshone everyone in the sport since his debut. And now, he has moved into the shade, leaving millions of his fans in dismay and the wider world in disbelief.

Kohli has been a force of nature. Feisty, provocative, confrontational, but above all a player whose influence on Indian cricket was, as former greats Greg Chappell and Michael Vaughan termed it, 'transformative'.

His exploits in all formats are Himalayan, an expression of not just fantastic skills, but also great grit, unflinching willpower, undying ambition, unquenchable desire to excel and an uncompromising work ethic. The sum total of these aspects was an electrifying force that brought the world to attention wherever he played.

This was most strikingly manifest when he was captain. Former India chief coach Ravi Shastri, who had a seven-year partnership with Kohli that kept India among the top three in all formats, credits him with making India into a supremely combative unit, especially overseas.

"Fiercely competitive and intensely motivated to be the best in the world, at a personal level and with his team, he was extremely demanding when it came to attitude, intent and fitness," says Shastri. “Sometimes this did not sit well with some of his teammates, but Kohli never asked anyone to do what he couldn't himself.”