The 37-year-old Virat Kohli is in prime ODI form, but that’s nothing new. Sarah Waris writes about the hopes he continues to embody every single time he takes the field.
2026 is the new 2016. No, that’s not coming from me. It’s the new social media wave. Don’t get me started on the arbitrariness of what goes “viral” on there, but there’s a sudden spike of nostalgia, with users enthusiastically revisiting decade-old versions of themselves. There are grainy photos, overused filters and slimmer versions of us, all being posted again. There’s nonstop laughter with a larger group of friends, carefree with none of that “adulting” business going on in their lives. As you stare at the photos, you go back, pause and smile. The stress-free college days, the bunking sessions spent huddled up together over momos and iced tea in the canteens, stopping mid-chatter to glance at the TV screen where Australia were taking on India in Canberra.
Set an imposing 349 for a win in the fourth ODI after the series had already slipped by, India got off to a flier. Rohit Sharma, who had never scored more than 30 runs at a strike rate over 160 in 146 matches up till that point, made 41 in 25 balls, hitting at a rate of 164. He was Kane Richardson’s first of the five wickets to fall in the innings, with his departure in the eighth over bringing out Kohli to a round of applause from an Australian crowd, who had embraced him as one of their own. “Must be devastating for the batter walking back”, you wondered, “He doesn’t need to be cheered on for his dismissal.”
Kohli, along with Shikhar Dhawan, kept ticking down the runs. A first-ball four to get going, three more against James Faulkner to follow. By the ninth over, Australia bowled 27 dot balls, or 50%, cutting down the scoring rate drastically. The duo remained unfazed, with Kohli, in particular, taking on the attack. He was on 30 off 18 balls at one point, reaching fifty in 54 balls. “The Master of Chase, Virat Kohli, is at it again”, you discussed, as you watched in wonder at how he shifted gears according to the match situation. Slowing down in the middle overs, taking on the spinners, the pace of the innings resembling the iconic Hobart knock from 2012. There were on-the-knee sublime shots, a dance-down-the-ground for a sensational six. When Dhawan fell, India still hoped, and as you walked out of the ‘Happy Patel’ movie theatre on Sunday evening, the glare of the Indore floodlights flickering across mobile screens, India allowed itself to hope once more.
This time, the task was to chase 338 and stop New Zealand from scripting their first-ever ODI series win in India. Rohit Sharma’s lean patch continued, his dismissal igniting a swelling noise and a unified roar. “It’s not a great feeling for the guy walking back,” Kohli had quipped. “I don’t feel good about it.” It was half-empathy, half-inevitability.
He began, as he increasingly does now, with intent. A six arced cleanly over deep midwicket early on. With Shubman Gill, he kept things moving, nudging, rotating, staying ahead of the rate. But once the skipper fell in the seventh over, the game tilted. Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul followed in quick succession, and suddenly the scoreboard told a different story. With Nitish Kumar Reddy and Ravindra Jadeja left to come, India were staring at a rare shallowness in batting depth. Still, there was Kohli.
He settled into the chase with the assurance of someone who has lived these moments too often to panic. The singles were taken at full tilt, the pressure absorbed as effortlessly as a microfiber towel drawing in excess moisture. He slowed down in the process of rebuilding, waited for errors, and in the process shepherded Reddy and then Harshit Rana to their maiden ODI fifties. When the required rate climbed, he switched gears seamlessly, sprinting from 72 to a century in just 17 balls, but not without giving a few moments of anxiety.
A sliced back-of-a-length delivery from Zak Foulkes when he was on 94 sent a collective gasp, even as JioHotstar view counts climbed with every refresh. At that point, India needed 122 from 75 balls, four wickets in hand, a situation that would usually not draw crowds to peer into restaurant windows that were airing the match or leave packed cars parked longer than planned on the roadside. But this was different. Kohli was batting.
He reached his hundred in trademark fashion, by sending down the Foulkes delivery to the on-side. He ran hard, in his 90th over of being on the field, still looking for a double, before deciding against it. This time, there was a silent acknowledgement, even as the decibel levels around him rose to near-deafening levels. Though the target grew steeper, New Zealand would have refused to celebrate until they had Kohli’s back. He’s been there, done that, far too many times.
In the end, it was all too abrupt. Two wickets fell in two balls, as Kohli was left isolated. He eventually perished while going for a boundary he could no longer avoid. It was only his ninth hundred in an ODI defeat, and just the second in the last seven years. It felt all too unfamiliar, yet it was quintessentially Kohli.
For far too often, in the hustle and bustle of life, we can hardly afford a breather to look back at the memories collected over the years. Our Google Photos blare memory-full notifications throughout the day, but we never take a look at the zoomed-out photos. Our classmates drop by with invitations to their marriage, but there’s exactly a minute to respond with “Congratulations” before forgetting the date. We no longer prefer Kullad chai, going instead with Starbucks’ Chai Tea Latte, and hour-long phone calls with our school best friends discussing the joys and sorrows of life seem a luxury.
In between all this, Kohli takes us back to the simpler days. He makes us pause in a world of constant rush, forces us to take part in a community activity, even if we aren’t aware, and makes us forget our newfound love for being introverted by making us jump up in joy with every run, and ton, he scores.
Maybe that is why his innings still feel larger than the result attached to them. In an era where everything moves too fast, and attention is fractured into highlights and reels, Kohli’s presence slows time just enough to make you feel again. For eight hours, the noise settles, the phone stays face down, and the world shrinks to a chase and a raised bat. You don’t think about where this fits in the arc of his career or how many of these moments remain. You simply stay, watching, hoping, remembering what it felt like when belief came easily. And when it ends, as it eventually must, you realise that for a brief while, it felt like 2016 again.
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