Unpredictability is the DNA of sport. And Cricket’s full of it anyways. A well-set batsman can get out hurt. A bowler can pull a hamstring. A sitter of a catch can be dropped. The most stable batting line-up can fall like ninepins if it has to on a tricky wicket.
That’s cricket. It has an element of surprise. It always will. But in a sport where quite literally nothing can be taken for granted, and anything can happen anytime can a team afford an internal chaos?
The Indian Cricket team is the top-floor posh penthouse of a plush residential complex.
Everyone wants to reach to the top. It’s grand out there. But it’s competitive. Utterly competitive. Everyone, therefore, wants to step inside the elevator.
Once you step outside, you enter a brave new world. Two of the finest modern day batsmen are already out there. They are the top of their game. They are the ruling roost.
Their names- Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. They’ve got nothing to prove to anyone. The hundreds, the big hundreds, the crazy strike-rates, their dynamic personalites-even if they don’t eat their breakfast properly, it becomes mainstream news.
If one among them mistimes a pull shot in the nets, there’s a quiver of disbelief in Mars.
Above all, the two are incredibly important personalities in world cricket.
But all’s not well between the two, we’ve heard. There’s some form internal conflict among them that’s sort of weighing them down.
But can India afford that?
Not at this time, at least. In fact, it just can’t be.
Not when you have on the one hand, an already pronounced existential crisis in the form of the vacuum in the middle-order. Remember, the flummoxing question regarding “who at number 4” hasn’t yet been solved?
An ageing Dhoni, a retired Rayudu and an often in-and-out Karthik aren’t perhaps the answers India are looking for.
If there’s one thing that the team would much rather have on its side then its sturdiness and a touch of assurance. Not chaos, certainly not from two of the most experienced names in the side.
If all’s not well between Rohit Sharma- a truly outstanding, record-breaking opening batsman and Virat Kohli- the new master blaster of Indian cricket- then it’s nobody’s fault but theirs.
Healthy rivalry or competitiveness, we have seen existed between batsmen before.
We saw the Waugh brothers during the nineties and the mid 2000s and the Flower brothers.
There are cases when one was driven maddeningly to outscore the other. But in the end, the results propelled their respective teams to further heights. It didn’t divide a unified team into separated units- did it?
But what are we seeing in the Sharma vs Kohli scenario? It’s making headlines.
Can a rail ever finish its long journey if there’s a problem with the locomotive?
Today, both Rohit and Virat are the locomotives for the team’s batting. It’s their efforts that carry the compartments that follow.
But a few hours back when you read that Rohit Sharma ‘unfollowed’ Virat Kohli’s better half, you didn’t just read a headline, you found yourself staring at an impossible to put down question- is the rumored rift between the two now getting personal.
Think of it. Reflect for a bit. On the surface, there cannot be a more stupider news.
How the hell does it even matter if Rohit Sharma unfollows anyone on social media? In fact, is that even news? The days of popcorn journalism seem real and thriving.
But at its core, it seems to point to a trouble that may not be good for the team. Yet, all that one can do in this scenario is nothing but the two grown men to solve it with each other.
Writing no amount of Facebook posts or motivating messages or Tweets can solve a supposed rift that involves not you or anyone but two mature, capable and fiercely independent minds.
At the end of the day a team is called so because it is composite of a collective unit. A oneness. Where team India find themselves today are spectacularly productive times. They were, until a few days ago, the number 1 ODI team. Then England became the champions.
Rohit’s personal form has been outstandingly good. He’s just produced 5 tons from the top order. If these knocks in the World Cup came amid times of duress, then just imagine all that he might have been able to do when he would’ve been non-stressed?
Kohli has led the team to beat South Africa in South Africa. He lorded in the 2018 ODI series in Faf-country. Moreover, on his watch, India made it to the semis.
Both talents are individually and collectively producing incredible results. So if they could just put their egos behind and act more cordially, imagine the progress they could achieve ahead?
For starters, no one else can or would clear up whatever mess they’ve created. So it’s them or no one. Let’s just hope Men, in this case, act like men. Minus personal agendas, the earlier the better.
