A country that breathes cricket as religion has seen some legendary individual cricketers in every generation. Interestingly however, Indian cricket has also seen some incredible pairs on the field from time to time that has delivered some extraordinary results and have in process has also created some memorable moments for the fans. Cricket is a team game which also has very important relevance of great individual players, but what also has been very popular is pairs of cricketers who have created some deep and strong character.
The duo of Kapil and Gavaskar in the 80s was a sensation that became extremely popular and also was an integral part of the World Cup 1983 while the duo of Sachin and Sehwag had a very longstanding liking as the Indian openers. Even in the world cricket, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis produced some terrific results for Pakistan while Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson did some serious partnership for England for years and how beautifully did Mahela Jaywardana with Kumara Sangakkara held Srilankan attention for a long period of time succeeding the beautiful comrade of Arjuna Ranatunga and Arvinda Desilva in 1990s.
What is beautifully significant about these wonderful individual cricketers forming a comrade amongst the other greats from the same time is not only the outstanding performance but has also built a strong charactered following of the fans looking at compassionately the genuineness of an on field compatibility and body language.
The most prolific and genius comrade that Indian cricket has witnessed last and most recently is amongst the two giants and heavy weights of the modern Indian cricket Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Virat Kohli. The sync and mutual admiration amongst the two has been simply incredible whilst they have beautifully complemented each other for a long period of time. Very rarely do we see in Indian Cricket the willingness of a voluntary transition of leadership by one long standing captain in MS Dhoni handing over the reigns during his ongoing career to the legend batter Virat Kohli another with an intent to develop a new captain for the future.
And furthermore importantly, it was so beautiful to see the vulnerable and non egoistic approach of captain Kohli to field on the boundary line allowing the Lion image standing behind the stumps in Dhoni to informally handle the affairs without Kohli feeling insecure or embarrassed about it. Kohli took over the reins of Test captaincy from Dhoni in 2014 and went onto become one of India’s most successful captains in the format. Kohli remained Dhoni’s deputy in limited-overs cricket till 2017. Dhoni was a vital cog in Kohli’s limited-overs setup until his retirement post the 2019 ODI World Cup in England.
The former India captains last batted together during that tournament in a group stage match against West Indies and added 40 runs for the fifth wicket. The duo scored 3090 runs in 80 innings across the three formats while batting together, averaging 47.53, and struck six century partnerships.
It was a sheer treat to see both of them batting together for India on numerous occasions in the lower middle order partnership and they just ran tremendously between the wickets. A beautiful combination that had a perfect age gap amongst themselves, with distinct personalities and different ways of expressing their anger. On one hand Dhoni would hardly express while on the other hand, Kohli jumps and celebrates aggressively even from the boundary. Opposites attract apply not only to a man and a woman, but even two men.
One could clearly see and sense an almost unconditional fondness as well as tremendous mutual admiration and respect amongst each other that was coupled with a strong common desire of wining games for Team India, which rubbed on positively in the other teammates.
An intense and beautiful journey of almost a decade and a half together shall probably end today with both of them clashing against each other for their respective IPL franchise CSK and RCB in a must win game for each one of them. The fans will get to witness the treat for one last time in an intense must win match poised beautifully.
Thank you MS and Virat for the glorious time.
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