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Follow UsMichael Jordan. Lionel Messi. Virat Kohli.
What connects them? If your first answer is that they have all completed their respective sports, then you are absolutely right.
Sports often are very complex — they have layers that unpeel themselves, forcing you to find newer avenues. But what these three have done is have dominant control over their sport.
The year is 1991. Michael Jordan had already won an Olympic gold medal the preceding year. He was already considered one of the players that dominated basketball. But an elusive NBA title evaded him. Unless he won that, he couldn’t go around boasting that he had completed the sport.
Jordan did it in a style that has, ever since, has been used as a benchmark. If you want to complete sport, do it like Jordan. He didn’t just win on the field, he took Nike to greater heights with a revolutionary sneaker deal that still stands tall in the ‘Air’.
Fast-forward to 2022. Lionel Messi is on the brink of retirement. He had already made a hasty decision to retire from La Albiceleste after their tough loss against Chile in the 2015 Copa America. But he pushed. Not just himself, but he pushed the entire nation to greater heights at the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
When he finally lifted that World Cup, he had completed the sport. Multiple individual titles, multiple club trophies, and now, more importantly, a World Cup to prove his worth as a modern-day great. In the following hours, he even broke the internet with his Instagram post alongside the trophy, earning him more than 50 million likes.
On and off the field, Messi, too like Jordan, had completed his sport – football. After all, he was Adidas’ poster boy.
Make your travel to 2024. Virat Kohli is nearing the expiry date of his T20I career. Multiple debates have already made the round. But he’s more determined than ever. His eyes sparkle at the thought of lifting that T20 World Cup. On June 29 (Saturday), the 35-year-old did exactly that: he did the most Kohli thing, pulled off a clutch performance, and in return, completed cricket.
He has done it all now: U-19 World Cup, ODI World Cup, Champions Trophy, and T20 World Cup. Off the field, there is not an iota of doubt that Kohli is the single greatest athlete that the marketing world has witnessed in the country. Combine that with his social media presence, you have a beast on marketing steroids.
Add to that, his enigma and persona have landed him one of the greatest deals in cricket history—one with Puma.
Nike, Adidas and now Puma.
Three different sports, three different athletes, but one common accolade – completed the sport.
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For the longest time, the T20 World Cup was Kohli’s adda [hangout area].
He would arrive at a global event, match himself against some of the toughest bowling units, terrorise them, and leave the field on a high. It would end with lavish praises, including the loosely used term G.O.A.T.
Keep this term in mind. By the end of this article, you will understand why it is not hyperbole to describe the fittest 35-year-old the game is witnessing. Kohli is an enigma, a show-stopper, and a package that is quite comprehensive to unpack.
But what he is alongside all of this is consistent.
After all, it is consistency that makes someone graze-worthy in modern day cricket. The T20 World Cup has been around for 17 long years but guess who has scaled themselves up the run-scoring mountain?
Kohli.
And he hasn’t done that just with his longevity. Amongst the top eight highest run-scorers in T20 World Cup history, Kohli has played the second-fewest innings, and yet he has scaled 1,292 runs, way more than any other person could have ever imagined.
Remember consistency? You have to scroll all the way down to the 46th batter on the list of top run scorers at the T20 World Cups to find a batter who has an average of over 50 that is not named Kohli.
Before this edition of the World Cup, Kohli didn’t even have a single zero next to his name. The only zero that was there was the one next to 5 to indicate his half-centuries.
There were 15 of them in total, the most for any batter.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Kohli has faced 16 opponents in T20 World Cup history, and he has come out to bat against 15 of them. Barring five opponents - New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Scotland, Ireland and the United States of America - he has a half-century against all of them.
The 35-year-old wasn’t a one-trick pony either. While he will go down in history as the epitome of greatness in run chases, his record batting first by no means was lacking a bite. Across his distinguished career, Kohli had scored more runs while batting first (750) than he did while chasing (542).
Even his half-centuries are split in a manner that is slightly tilted towards batting first, despite him being branded as someone who only has *success* while chasing.
On Saturday, Kohli just took another step in the realm of greatness when he scored a decisive half-century against South Africa in the T20 World Cup 2024 final. He joined an illustrious list of players in the competition’s history to score two fifties in the final.
But guess what? All of these above numbers would have meant nothing but mere statistical evidence of someone who had a great career sans the trophy. If you don’t have that trophy, your reputation of being the all-time great is often left to the wolves.
It all changed on Saturday, a day that started with India winning the toss and ended with India lifting the T20 World Cup title, breaking a jinx that had been weighing heavily on their shoulders for the past 11 years.
Kohli finally won the title his illustrious career had yearned for. He finally won the piece of silverware that now validates and weighs his statistical brilliance. The T20 World Cup trophy might just weigh 12 kgs, but its significance was infinitely heavier to add gravitas to Kohli’s distinguishable T20I career.
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‘You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain…’
No one could have known that this was going to be Kohli’s last T20 World Cup. He was 35, but his fitness and form were at the peak of his powers. Even those questions about his struggle against spin were well answered before the global event.
Not to forget, he was the poster boy of the entire event and one of the biggest reasons behind the tournament's crazy popularity in unventured shores of the United States of America. He was the marketing universe’s destiny child. Every billboard had his image, and every subway was filled with the Asian diaspora, all trying their best impression of Kohli, donning that iconic No.18 jersey.
When everything seemingly was going in his favour came a sharp downfall. 75 runs in seven innings despite getting promoted to exploit the field restriction, it seemed like even the greatest of writers were running out of ink.
But Kohli scripts his own destiny.
While his innings might have been scratchy, far away from what Kohli would have played at the peak of his powers, it was a reassurance to the fans that why fear when Kohli is here.
That’s been his motto throughout his career. He has not only carried forward Sachin Tendulkar’s rich legacy but has done it in unimaginable ways, with consistency that has left several cricketers lagging behind.
Throughout all of this, though, Kohli kept the biggest secret from his fans: This was going to be his last-ever T20I appearance for the national team. In 2011, Kohli carried Sachin on his shoulders, and 13 years later, it was Kohli’s turn.
The greatest showman that the game has seen with the greatest bow down that the game would ever see. He pulled the plug at the right time and made himself a national hero.
After all, he had now completed cricket, thus sealing all the debates of him being the G.O.A.T at the T20 World Cups.
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