Indus Valley Times

NEW DELHI, NOV 5: India batting icon Virat Kohli celebrates his 34th birthday today, November 5.

Virat Kohli has celebrated his previous two birthdays very differently, quietly. Usually on the road, in 2020, Kohli’s birthday was more about him embarking on a new chapter in life – fatherhood. With his wife Anushka Sharma bearing the couple’s first child, probably for the first time in his life, Virat’s birthday, to him, was more about someone else. The year later, in 2021, Kohli found himself in arguably the lowest phase of his career in and around his birthday. Two days after he had turned 33, India were knocked out of the T20 World Cup – in his last tournament as T20I captain. If this wasn’t hurting enough, a little over a month later, the BCCI informed Kohli that he was no longer needed as India’s ODI captain. For India’s most decorated batter of the last decade, this wasn’t the birthday gift Kohli was expecting.

To make things worse, Kohli, who had by then gone without a century for two years, was now struggling to register double-digit scores, let alone fifties. When 2022 began, the belief was that Kohli the champion would shrug off poor form, but things took a turn for the worse. The Test average dropped below 50 for the first time as a record-obsessed nation witnessed Kohli’s fall from grace… their superhero, their King reduced to being a mortal. The man who would once conjure hundreds for fun, was now looking at the heavens, almost questioning, “How many new ways are you going to find to get me out?” in a heart-breaking sight during the IPL. Runs dried up and form eluded him.