Readers Write In #800: A tribute to Virat Kohli from a Tendulkar Fan

By Bala

I must say, I am slightly relieved.

As a die-hard Tendulkar fan, you always knew his greatness was sealed, but one of the defining aspects of his career was numbers. He didn’t have enough wins or trophies to show, and hence his fans had to obsess over the volume of runs and centuries. At his peak, he held most runs and centuries in both forms of cricket he played, plus the highest individual score in ODIs. These were 5 of the 6 pinnacle records for a batsman in cricket (the other being Lara’s). Yet, at that point, he hadn’t won any World Cups, nor was he part of an invincible team. And his captaincy record was abysmal. So, even though almost everyone with decent cricket knowledge agreed that Tendulkar was the finest thing to happen in cricket after Bradman, and during his peak some even argued he was greater, for the newer generation, Tendulkar’s legacy became predominantly about the volume of runs.

So when Virat Kohli started threatening those statistics, as a Tendulkar fan, I would get nervous. Every time Virat scored a century, even if I wanted to enjoy it (because hey, I am an Indian cricket fan, and cricket fan in general), some of my Tendulkar-critic friends (believe me, there were enough critics for Tendulkar, just lack of social media meant they didn’t have an outlet) would message me to mock that my idol’s record was closer to being broken. Initially, my response was, “let’s wait for five more years.” Then, it turned to “ODI cricket has changed so drastically that we can’t compare.” While I believe this is true, deep down, I also know that Virat is just as great as Tendulkar in ODIs, if not greater, given how he finishes the chases.

And once he became captain, the Tendulkar vs Kohli argument tilted heavily in Kohli’s favor. Kohli not only became India’s most successful captain, he also won Test matches and series overseas. Now, in batting he was compared to Tendulkar and Gavaskar, and in captaincy, he was compared with Dhoni and Ganguly. That is some height no one had achieved before.

When Kohli hit his rough patch, I was secretly feeling happy inside, much like how Tendulkar’s critics would have felt post-2011 World Cup. But I knew it was only a matter of time before he regained his form. So, I would always hold my breath when Kohli was batting.

With the 2023 ODI World Cup, when Kohli broke Tendulkar’s ODI centuries record in the semifinals, I felt that now the painful wait for the inevitable was over, I could finally start enjoying Kohli’s innings without having to worry about his century count.

But since then, Kohli’s form has declined significantly. I felt somewhat reassured by all the articles and videos that once again started placing Tendulkar way above Kohli. Yet I never got the chance to enjoy his sheer genius without worrying about my idol’s legacy.

Around 2011, when Tendulkar was primed to leave on a high, I felt that ODIs would fade away, and his records would never be broken. His Test records seemed so insurmountable that they wouldn’t be broken in my lifetime. But within one generation, the ODI record has fallen, and the Test record could be broken by Joe Root. I’m reminded of Pete Sampras’s interview, where he felt his record of 14 Grand Slams would stay for many decades, yet within one generation, three people surpassed it.

If you ask me today whether I rate Kohli above or below Tendulkar, I would still say below Tendulkar, but I acknowledge there are genuine reasons to believe otherwise. My regret is that my loyalty to Tendulkar prevented me from enjoying a genius like Kohli at his peak. That was my loss. Hopefully, I don’t make the same mistake with the next legend.