Why Virat Kohli is a unique Indian batting great in Test cricket in the company of Tendulkar, Dravid and Gavaskar

For twelve years, Virat Kohli filled the most unfillable void in Indian cricket. Of Sachin Tendulkar. Now, he leaves Indian cricket with a fresh vacuum. Of Virat Kohli. Across 123 Tests, 210 innings, 9230 runs, 30 hundreds, and numerous match-winning feats in an era when India became a force abroad, he was the soul and spine of India’s batting, its sustainer and destroyer.

- GNS News Agency, May 16

Those were the best days of his life and the lives of many others too, which gave them meaning. As with Tendulkar, he was a hero of the masses, the one who was more than a batsman or a sportsman; an idol and an emotional investment, the numbers next to his name capable of both captivating and crushing the nation.

His legacy, as a Test batsman, is straightforward. He is one of the greatest that strode to bat for his country. A prolonged slump during the pandemic diminished his numbers, denying the once unstoppable fate of him conquering every batting peak in the game and breaking every possible record. The threads of fate work in strange ways, but Kohli bids goodbye as his country’s fourth-highest run-getter, behind Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, and Sunil Gavaskar. The placing is a precise and hierarchical reflection of his stature in Indian cricket. Not the GOAT, but one of the GOATs.A definite set of common virtues binds them all at this level—grandeur of stroke-making, firmness of technique, resolve of the mind, all-condition adaptability, and problem-solving knack. But in the middle, when the persona reflects as much as the style of batting, each one is unique. Gavaskar exuded unreal peace; Dravid was all inscrutable intensity; Tendulkar exhibited irreproducible masterfulness. Kohli emanated pure energy, unrehearsed and untrammelled, from the bottom of his heart, a vibe that filled the audience with a positive rage. Tendulkar generated love, Gavaskar awe, Dravid admiration, and Kohli an undulating buzz. He was the most mortal among them, a relatable, expressive and transparent man. He was without masks and pretences. The man you see was the man he often was.