Posted on

Superstars, Egos and Cricket

It is day 2 of the test match between India and Afghanistan when I started writing this. Team India is in a very dominating position right now, but the Afghans are not doing too badly either. However, amidst all this, a very hot topic of debate has raised its head.

The topic? People are not coming to watch test matches because a superstar, namely, Virat Kohli, has retired from the format. Not that this is the first time this debate has arisen, but I feel it is time we actually sit and logically talk about it. From the heading, you must’ve already guessed what I will be talking on: THE SUPERSTAR CULTURE IN INDIA.

India is not really a stranger to having these ‘superstars’. For decades, we have seen them act in Bollywood, where it doesn’t matter if you’re acting well or doing a good movie; if you are a superstar, you’ll sell tickets. As simple as that. And over the years, this cancer has seeped into cricket as well.

Cricket, just like any sport, has good players, great players, and then there are some that reach GOAT level status, and to be honest, there’s nothing wrong with fans calling them that or even players calling themselves ‘great’. At the end of the day, players who have that sort of confidence (considering that they perform at that level as well) do end up achieving crazy things. But things will start to get bad when they think they are above everyone and everything must be to their liking, or they get hurt. Or to be clear, their egos get hurt.

Indian cricket has had its fair share of superstars, but the first name that pops up is always Sachin Tendulkar. The era of Sachin Tendulkar was honestly different, though. I’ve never heard any stories of when Tendulkar got a head coach changed because he didn’t like him or retired from a format altogether because he was told he would have to improve his form to get back into the team.

This brings me to a player, who I feel has quite an inflated ego, which has helped him achieve great things, and as a result has given him an ego boost too.

The story of Virat Kohli’s ego and influence goes all the way back to 2016, when he was leading India across all 3 formats. Back then, Anil Kumble, one of India’s legends, was made the head coach, and from the stats, he did a pretty good job as well. However, despite all this, Kohli and Kumble had quite a public breakup. Why? Because Kohli didn’t like how Kumble coached, and then there was the whole thing over the selection of the squad and who should play.

While, debates over selection are only natural, the fact that the board decided to push Kumble out of the team because ‘Kohli did not make him feel welcome in the dressing room’ speaks quite a bit about how much power and influence was given to him within the team, which then further gave him an ego boost.

Now jump forward to January of 2025, India has just suffered another humiliating series to Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. What stung was not just the series loss but the road leading to this. India was used to dominating tests at home for over a decade, but slowly, after 2023, this started to change. We did not immediately lose a lot of matches or series, but we saw a Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma who were degrading as red-ball batters. While their white ball form was pristine, somehow the two were unable to continue their grip in the longer format.

While let’s be honest, Rohit was never looked at as a traditional test batter because of his on and off performances in the format, however, Kohli was. The batsman who once dreamed of 10,000 test runs as his goal was losing his touch, one step at a time.

The downfall of Virat Kohli in hindsight started in 2021, after all, he played only one match in the 2020/21 BGT. Even though he received enough criticism for skipping the elite series, it did give Ajinkya Rahane the platform to cement his legacy as one of the best test captains and players who ever donned the whites. In 2021, Virat Kohli played 19 innings across 11 test matches and managed to keep an average of just 28.21 while scoring 50+ runs just 4 times and even getting dismissed for a duck 4 times (the most for him in a calendar year).

Since then, the graph has only moved in the downward direction except for 2023, which was a phenomenal year for Kohli. Since 2021, Kohli’s average has been 26.5 (2022), 55.91 (2023), 24.52 (2024), and 11.5 (2025). In these figures, you can see how the King was slowly losing his spot while the likes of Steve Smith, Joe Root, and Kane Williamson went strong. If we talk about the reasons for this rapid decline in his batting performance, the biggest one that strikes me is the outside off trap.

The outside off trap is no stranger to Kohli, who has faced a problem leaving balls on the 4th or 5th stump for way too long. The first time we probably saw this become a problem was back in 2014 during the England tour, where James Anderson completely owned him. Then, he worked hard and got through it, although not permanently. Even though he did see this problem surface every now and then, it was never that serious. He would usually buckle up, and this problem would not last more than a couple of games, usually.

Since 2021, Kohli had started to get haunted by the outside off trap once again. Nothing major at first, but slowly it started to become prominent, and things kind of reached the peak post the ICC World Cup 2023. It was this year that almost sealed Kohli’s career. In the 2024/25 season, Kohli only managed to get one 50+ score and one century. At the same time, across the 19 innings he batted, he was caught out 12 times! And more often than not, it was the ball on the 4th or the 5th stump.

It was after the disastrous New Zealand series that the management, as well as pundits, said that he needed to play more domestic red-ball cricket so he could get over this issue. After all the hullabaloo, Virat did play domestic cricket for Delhi, but alas, during that match, he got out similarly as well. Then arose the question: Does Kohli still have it in him to play test cricket for India?

After his poor performance in the 2024/25 BGT, the questions just got louder. It seemed the management, especially the head coach, Gautam Gambhir, was ready to bench India’s star player. And to be honest, it did make sense. Gambhir has always been against the superstar culture within the Indian team, especially since the 2011 World Cup win, when Dhoni was allegedly given more credit than others. So when Gambhir decided it was time to drop Rohit and Virat, no doubt, it did hurt fans’ sentiments. More importantly, it probably hurt Kohli’s ego.

Soon after the rumours of Rohit & Kohli being sidelined for the England tour, which was to take place 6 months later, emerged, we got the news nobody wanted. Rohit Sharma resigned from test cricket, and soon enough, even Virat Kohli ended his legendary test career. A player who once dreamt of scoring 10,000 runs in test cricket quit his dream, all of a sudden.

The real question that stayed in everybody’s mind was: Why now? From a fan’s perspective, I could only find two reasons.

One, over the years, Virat was slowly turning into a family man. Given that he was 36, he knew his career was coming to an end despite the fact that he could still play for India till 2028-29 quite easily. At the same time, it made sense that he take time off to spend time with his family, focus on his fitness and aim for the 2027 ICC ODI World Cup, a trophy that gave him immense heartbreak back in 2023, just like Rohit Sharma.

The 2nd reason I sense is his ego. During the IPL, he gave an explosive interview where he said that the Indian team management, after the BGT, asked him to prove his worth and show that he deserved a place in the test team. According to him, it was then that he felt that he did not need to prove anything to anyone anymore.

While his feelings are valid, the national team should always come first. If you’re a player who isn’t doing so well and blocking a position, it should be the player’s duty to show that he can still do it. You simply can’t expect a place in the squad or in the playing XI if you’re not performing & in a way becoming a liability for the team despite being a living legend.

It was then that Gautam Gambhir’s statements about ending superstar culture in India made sense. If a player expects to be in the national team despite extremely poor performances, while ignoring pleas to play county or domestic cricket to regain form, then I feel he should be dropped.

If great players like Ajinkya Rahane or Cheteshwar Pujara are not exceptions to being dropped from the team, neither should Virat Kohli.

To be honest, what hurt me more was not the fact that Kohli thought he was done with test cricket and decided to retire. What hurt me more was the fact that it was Virat’s ego and the fact that he was ‘hurt’ when asked to prove his worth despite a string of bad performances, which is a quality we never associated with him.

While there is a good chance we might see a player as good as Virat Kohli, be it in captaining the side or in his batting prowess, it is a fact that he will never be a ‘superstar’ if the current management’s mentality persists. For now, it is simply unfortunate how the one thing, i.e., ego, that made Virat Kohli great also ended up finishing his career as a test batsman.

Posted on

India vs Pakistan: To be or Not to be?

In the last 12-24 hours, you might be seeing a lot of reels or videos on social media that might tell you how watching the India vs Pakistan is ‘deshdroh’ and how by watching the game and not ‘boycotting’ it, you are showing disrespect to all the victims of the Pahalgam terror attack. Now, before I move forward, I want to make it amply clear that the purpose of this article is not to disrespect anyone, especially the victims of a heinous terror attack.

The Pahalgam terror attack was undoubtedly one of the worst attacks we have seen in the past few years. The attack, followed by India’s ‘Operation Sindoor’, created huge unrest between the two countries (as is natural). It also led to a total shutdown on any import or export between the two countries, with India even shutting down water supply to Pakistan and calling the Indus Water Treaty null and void, in essence. So it is quite sensible for the Indian citizens to be emotional and not want their country to do anything with Pakistan, including Sports.

Here comes the especially tricky part. While it is easy to shut down bilateral cricket matches, i.e., no India vs Pakistan series, be it Test, ODI, or T20Is, which we have been doing for more than 10 years now, multilateral/multinational sports tournaments come in a particularly grey area. Why do you ask? Well, essentially because the fixtures aren’t set by either of the countries but rather by the governing bodies, for example, ICC or the ACC, which is now organising the Asia Cup. In such cases, there are a few things that people usually say are the solution to this problem. Let’s sit and decode whether that is possible or not.

Why can’t Team India just forfeit the match?

Forfeiting doesn’t mean that the game is being abandoned. It means that one team is not going to play the game. In the context of Team India, it isn’t possible to forfeit the game against Pakistan; here’s why. Since this is a group stage of a multinational tournament, even a single point can be the difference between going to the semis or going home.

In such a case, let’s say India does forfeit the game against Pakistan, then Pakistan gets the 2 points from the game, and India gets a loss. It might not seem like a big deal, but imagine a scenario where Pakistan tops the group stage with 3 wins and somehow the UAE manages to win 2 games, the same as India. In such a case, all comes down to the NRR. If India somehow has a lower NRR, then they’re out of the tournament. Therefore, since this has an element of risk of elimination attached to it, forfeiting might not be a logical option even though it might emotionally feel like one.

Can’t BCCI use its influence and make sure that India and Pakistan do not play together?

Coming on to the bigger question. BCCI, the world’s biggest cricket board, with more than 40% share in ICC’s revenue, is clearly the most powerful, along with the English Cricket Board (ECB) and the Australian Cricket Board. Together, these boards are called the Big 3 of world Cricket. Logically, in the context of the Asia Cup, the BCCI is the most powerful board in the Asian Cricket Council and hence, should have a final say in each matter. Why?

Because it is India that is bringing in the majority of the viewership and revenue. Therefore, common sense dictates that if BCCI refuses to play Pakistan in the Asia Cup, the ACC will be forced to put the two teams in two separate groups to avoid a clash. But then why does it not happen? One, and the major part of it is the revenue. India vs Pakistan is arguably the biggest cricketing event and one of the biggest sporting events globally, with billions joining in to watch the game. Second, it is not the BCCI but the ACC, a group of multiple cricket boards, that sets the schedule. So, even if BCCI objected to a fixture but the other boards agreed to it, the spirit of democracy and sportsmanship dictates that BCCI will have to accept the fixture, which it does.

That raises the question: if the BCCI is already the biggest and richest board of them all, why still play for money? The answer lies in the fact that the ACC needs money to survive and grow. And an India vs Pakistan fixture is the easiest way to bring it in. Just think about the sheer revenue such a clash generates through advertisements, broadcasters, and ticket sales. This money, along with earnings from the other matches, goes into paying participating nations, especially those who rely on it, like the UAE, Hong Kong, and Oman. But it doesn’t stop there. There’s the winners’ prize, the runners-up prize, operational expenses, and the need to remain profitable enough to reinvest in grassroots cricket across countries that don’t yet have a strong cricketing ecosystem or a massive fan following. So, as much as it may upset some people, big fixtures like India vs Pakistan will continue to be the financial backbone of these regional tournaments, simply because of the financial realities that the ACC and smaller boards face.

Now, let’s look at another angle. The argument that the BCCI should use its influence to avoid playing Pakistan doesn’t hold up when you consider the tournament format. What happens if India forfeits the group-stage match on Sunday, only to meet Pakistan again in the finals? Should India forfeit again and just hand over the trophy? If your answer is yes, then you’re letting emotions cloud logic. Think about it. Wouldn’t it be even more disrespectful to the families of the victims if Pakistan were to lift the trophy that India could have easily won, leaving them with the impression that India was “too scared” of the so-called mighty Pakistanis on the cricket field?

In the end, emotions will always run high around these matches. But the reality is, things are far easier said than done. Until a genuine long-term solution emerges, one that balances both the sentiments of the people and the passion of cricket fans, we’ll keep seeing these kinds of debates flare up every time India and Pakistan step onto the same field.