When you have lived the kind of made-for-television existence that Virat Kohli has for the past 15 years, how much mystique, and how much freshness, does the spotlight leave for you? Kohli has invited much of the attention. There is arguably no cricketer in history that has revelled in this glow so much as Kohli, the broadcaster's Kohlicam a self-perpetuating highlights package waiting to be cut to quicken the pulse of hundreds of millions.
But human beings are complex. And though it feels like there are few dark corners waiting to be revealed about Kohli the person, and certainly no mysteries to Kohli the batter, there are some moments that he wants to keep to himself.
On the eve of the Pakistan vs India match of this Champions Trophy, for instance, Kohli showed up to the nets of the ICC's academy hours before he was scheduled to be there, and had a big throwdowns session, with one or two net bowlers in attendance. This was long before the media believed he would arrive, so it is difficult to figure what exactly he worked on. But when word spread that Kohli had landed, fans showed up and were kept outside the gates, from where they could catch only the barest of glimpses.
This is Kohli's life. Many would show up just to watch him sneeze, and then replay the video of the sneeze with friends, then discuss at length what could possibly have caused it, and whether he looked like he was suppressing any more sneezes, and at what velocity exactly the air was coming out of his nose. Were there any hints of snot? No, surely. The vegan diet. The punishing exercise regimen. In this body? No way. There is no excess mucus there.
Kohli, the batter, has had recent trials against legspin. With other players you might not even notice. Wristspin anyway rocks the world on South Asian tracks right now. Also the ODI sample size is tiny.
And because it is Kohli, and this career is under the electron microscope, facts that you would not discover about others, you do discover about Kohli. Since the start of 2024, Kohli had been out five times to legspin in the six ODI innings he had faced legspin in. His batting strike rate against legspinners was 48.64.
This is a very specific kind of bowling, in a currently unfavoured format, so the data can only reveal so much. But how you have tended to get out in your last few innings is the thing that opposition bowlers tend to prey on. This is the blood in the water that the great white sharks - which Australia tend to embody in big tournaments - are drawn to.
But although great whites generally rule the oceans, they are not the apex predator in this particular food chain. Kohli is an orca. On Tuesday, he stunned the sharks, and ate them up. Australia bowled 96 balls of legspin in this game, bringing in Tanveer Sangha to complement Adam Zampa. Only 14 of those 96 balls came when Kohli was not in the middle.
Against Zampa, one of the best white-ball bowlers going, Kohli made 23 off 24 balls. Against Sangha, he hit 12 off 9. All up, that's 35 off 33 balls against a type of bowling he is supposed to be struggling against. He even deployed the sweep against Sangha's bowling - not one of his favoured shots. He got him away through fine leg for four.
Kohli would eventually get out to Zampa, holing out to long-on on 84. Zampa bowled a googly that Kohli picked, but he wanted to crash it high over that long-on boundary anyway. Maybe in the very back of Kohli's brain, right near the section neuroscience professors might label "impulse centre", there was a thought that if he sent this ball high and long into the night, there would be no more doubts about him and legspin. Whether this is Kohli being intensely attuned to what people might be saying about him, or Kohli being intensely attuned to his own cricketing reality, it is hard to tell.
But it is worth noting that this shot came only when India's victory was all but assured. They needed 40 off 45 when he played that shot, with KL Rahul already batting well, and Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja to come. Don't ever let anyone tell you that winning matches for India is not important to Kohli.
"When you play 300 games, you will end up getting out to some of the spinners - so that's okay," coach Gautam Gambhir said after the match when asked about Kohli's recent brushes with legspin. "He's got a hundred in this competition [against Pakistan], he's got a [84] in this competition, and when you've got runs in this competition, you will eventually get out to some kind of a bowler. So rather than dissecting and bisecting that he's got out to legspin and then… when you've played 300 ODIs you will eventually get out to certain kind of bowlers."
The end of Kohli's innings in this particular match revealed something brand new about a player it was thought there was no more to be known. He could have cruised his way to a 52nd ODI hundred, extending his lead at the top of a leaderboard that he will likely rule forever. But there was some part of him that also needed to crash a top-quality legspinner over long-on. And who could possibly deny the fun, the freshness, and the mystique in that?
Stats inputs from Sampath Bandarupalli