#360View: Kohli's volatile personality will stop him becoming a legend

Joy Chakravarty 12:06 05/03/2015
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  • Gesturing: Virhat Kholi has had previous on-field altercations with the opposition, shown the finger to the fans and fought with photographers.

    Let me be very categorical; Virat Kohli can never be the next Sachin Tendulkar. Never ever. Simply because of one reason – there is more to achieving the status of a champion, or a legend, than wielding a magical willow.

    – India's Virat Kohli apologises to journalist after verbal abuse

    Kohli may bat like Tendulkar, and smash all the records in the game, but until he realises there are several other things in this world to respect other than a good-length delivery, he is never going to earn the kind of admiration and love that players like Tendulkar, Brian Lara and others have through their exploits.

    Simply put, these players possessed the virtue of humility, which exalted their already lofty status in the game.

    What transpired between Kohli and a senior Indian journalist in Perth on Tuesday over something written about his personal life needs to be condemned in the strongest possible terms.

    We live in a civilised world, where there is a way in which disputes are settled. But to hurl a barrage of expletives, wagging your finger threateningly and shouting in public – and without thinking that perhaps he should establish the basic facts as to whether the other person should actually be the object of his ire – is not the behaviour of someone in control of his senses. It’s embarrassing.

    I was hoping the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) would take some action against him, but an e-mail from the team media manager yesterday said the “matter ends” as “there was no abusive language” and that Virat has “spoken to the concerned gentleman”.

    Sorry, but both premises on which the matter has been closed are not true. Kohli did abuse, and he later called a different journalist and asked him to explain it to the aggrieved scribe that it was a case of mistaken identity.

    This actually is the second such incident concerning the sub-continental teams in the 2015 World Cup. Just a few days ago, Pakistan opener Ahmed Shehzad started shouting at one of the seniormost Pakistan journalists for tweeting wrong things about him.

    But at least he did not abuse, and he did have the courtesy to come back later and personally shake hands with the journalist and apologise.

    The Indian team needs to learn that they cannot mistrust the media to this extent. Most of the scribes here are senior writers, who are more interested in cricketing aspects, rather than what’s happening in Kohli’s personal life.

    The other day, a journalist asked captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni a simple question, but using a wrong phrase: ‘A few days ago, you guys could not buy a win, and now you don’t look like losing. What has changed?’

    Simple question, but Dhoni took a massive swipe at the media, saying: “I don’t know whether to answer the buy aspect first because you have given yourself a nice thing to write, especially the India media, with the buy question.”
    That was a completely uncalled for comment.

    The Kohli episode is yet another example of why the BCCI needs to hire an experienced journalist as their media manager on tours.

    If nothing else, he can at least identify a few journalists to the players before they start abusing the wrong one and perhaps teach them how the media actually works.

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