The fall in sport is cruel, inevitable and hard to digest

In sport, this is the guarantee. Falls will be hard. The boxer sent to the canvas. The rugby winger brought to earth. The gymnast slipping off the high bar. And the hero tumbling from his pedestal.

- Rohit Brijnath

The fall is different from the rise because it's inevitable. It comes with warnings but they are brushed aside till the truth becomes incontestable. There it is, on TV, in conversations, in the way people look at him, in the scoreboards Virat Kohli must flinch from.

38, 76, 46, 12, 6, 17, 47. Scores that start from Tests in late 2023.

29, 0, 70, 1, 17, 4, 1. Scores inadequate from a great player.

5, 100, 7, 11, 3, 36, 5, 17, 6. Scores miserable in Australia.

Test scores that suggest a fall but the fall is rarely worn gracefully. Champions don't just accept they're done, tip their hat to the game and leave. They grow up pinning some version of Vince Lombardi's quote - "It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up" - to their walls. Rising not falling is their religion.

And so even though mistakes multiply, some part of their brain, the illogical, magnificent part which once told a boy from Delhi he could be the best in the world, that part is often in denial. Yeah, I've slipped, but I'm not over.

Kohli was a great Test batsman. He won't like the tense. He'll bristle, maybe give you the finger, for his blood runs thick with rebellion. But he'll also know his scores tell an average truth and that "form is temporary, class is permanent" is a lie. In sport, nothing is forever.