If AB de Villiers is the Superman of cricket, Virat Kohli has to be the Batman

No, this is not an article about the latest Warner Bros. release “The Dawn of Justice”, that would be Batman vs Superman. This is about two modern day cricketers who come close enough as the embodiment of DC comics’ two most loved superheroes, AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli.

If AB de Villiers were a superhero, he’d probably be Superman. His whirlwind 31-ball century last year was one of the most audacious innings ever. There are other guys who can tonk the ball, Chris Gayle, Shahid Afridi, Kieron Pollard etc. but there is something that differentiates de Villiers from them. That “something” is the ease with which he does it and the adaptability he’s got.

The speed at which he accelerates is very Superman like, the opposition won’t even realize what hit them. At one point de Villiers might be batting on a 20-ball 15, next moment he’s on a 30-ball half-century, for the opposition everything is downhill from there on.

The reason AB de Villiers has got the Superman tag is because when he steps out in the middle, everyone else looks a mere mortal while AB looks as if he were from another planet. Even the best of men would come a distant second and hardly as successful while replicating the shots he plays. It seems as if in one clean swipe he’d take you out and all you could do was watch the ball fly in the sky and into the stands.

The only time one can take on de Villiers is when he is “Clark Kent”, watchful and tentative waiting to unleash his caped alter-ego.

Virat Kohli has batted many a times with this Superman in the IPL and can be called ‘The Batman’ for all his exploits in the past few years.

If Superman gave you speed, Batman gives you stealth. Superman doesn’t shy away from performing his heroics in broad daylight, Batman does his dirty work in the darkness of the night. Kohli came in at a time when Indian fans were looking for a hero after their beloved Sachin Tendulkar decided to walk away from the game.

In his formative years, Kohli was unloved, called arrogant, abusive and “just another typical Delhi boy”. Over the years, slowly but surely Kohli has transformed himself into one of the most loved cricketers the country has ever seen. The reason behind all the love is that his words and runs have been going hand in hand and suddenly the arrogance has become passion which he wears on his sleeve. If you grew up in the 90s in India, you’d remember how nervous one would get when Sachin Tendulkar was at the crease, all hopes pinned on him and the loss of his wicket meant game over.

Virat Kohli carries the latter part of the Tendulkaresque feel and one would be certain that if he got out, the game was done. Where Kohli wins it is, when he is at the crease, more than nervous he makes it relaxing for the people watching the match. With every boundary he scores people are certain that “he’s got this”. One aspect of Kohli that puts him with the best in the world is that never does he overdo it.

Kohli isn’t all brute force like Gayle, neither is he the innovator that AB de Villiers is, but he is one of the smartest cricketing brains one could come across. Old school coaches advise young cricketers to be as unnoticed as possible, drive the ball, play with the straight bat, don’t look to hit every ball out of the park. These tactics worked well in the 90s and early 2000s, but at the onset of Twenty20, this aspect of the game was almost forgotten. Virat Kohli with those cheeky singles, those hard run twos has not only made Sunil Gavaskar proud but also brought all the cricket nerds to the yard.

Rarely would you see Kohli play an unconventional shot, he is very textbook player in that aspect of the game. His confidence on his game is really what separates him from others. In the Australia game, Rohit Sharma was 12 off 16 balls, he had consumed enough balls and wanted a release shot when he knew Kohli was at the other end. That release shot ended his innings and he gave it away yet again. Au contraire, when the asking rate was creeping up to 10-11/over, Kohli held his nerve and even when Yuvraj Singh was looking uncomfortable in the middle, he didn’t go for the “spectacular”, he believed that he could do it if he stayed on till the very end. He won it for India without playing any risky shots, just good old cover drives and square drives to keep it simple.

In the middle overs, Kohli was merely rotating the strike, it gave the Australians a false sense of hope that they have tied him down and the game is in their control. That’s what Virat Kohli, the Batman’s stealth is, with those ones and twos, he kept the scoreboard moving, not letting the Australians realise that all this while he was setting himself up for the “knockout punch”.

This one inning doesn’t make Virat Kohli great, but the effort that he’s put over the years to come out and play this one is what makes him great. All those hours in the gym, on the ground, in the nets, learning things off the field all of this put together gives us Virat Kohli.

It is very difficult to pick between AB and Kohli for each of them are legends in their own right. And to borrow a quote from the hit American TV series, ‘House Of Cards’, AB de Villiers is everything everyone wants to be, Kohli is everything everyone wants to become.

He has been a phenomenal phenomenon – The phenomenon that is Virat Kohli