Kohli on the front foot

DRIVEN
THE VIRAT KOHLI STORY
Author: Vijay Lokapally
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Pages: 221
Price: Rs 399

Among the several things that worry me about a sportsperson's biography or autobiography is its timing. England all-rounder Ben Stokes decided to pen his story relatively early: he is just 25, has played a mere 44 one-day internationals and 25 Test matches, and is best remembered for getting clobbered by a beastly Barbadian bloke for four consecutive sixes in a T20 World Cup final.

In fact, he may urgently have to send his publishers a revised version already - Durham, the English county side Stokes has been representing since 2009, was docked 48 points and demoted to division two earlier this week by the England and Wales Cricket Board in light of the financial problems that have encumbered the team for a number of years now.

On the other extreme of that gamut is Johan Cruyff, whose posthumous memoir, My Turn, will hit book shelves next week, some 32 years after he stopped playing, and 20 years post his last eminent coaching job - Barcelona.

That way, Driven: The Virat Kohli Story, a biography of the cricketer by veteran sports journalist Vijay Lokapally, deserves some praise. Kohli is well in his prime - both as batsman and captain - and maybe it was about time someone came up with a satisfactory piece of writing on the country's most exceptional cricketer.

Lavish acclaim from his peers as well as ingenious readers of the game has become routine for Kohli, but sagacious dissections of his intricate cricket brain and personality have been rare. Ayaz Memon's Virat Kohli: Reliable Rebel, which came out three years ago, was such a ludicrously brisk read that it offered puny insight into Kohli's life and career. The hackneyed, alliterative title obviously didn't help matters.

In Driven, Lokapally masterfully traces Kohli's childhood, managing to interview a slew of important people in his life, including his first coach, Raj Kumar Sharma, who features deeply throughout the book. What makes Driven work, despite the somewhat trite prose, is Lokapally's ability to tell a good story - the book is awash with some delightful anecdotes.

Among them are a few widely-known ones: Kohli's decision to go out and bat the evening after his father's death, in a 2006 Ranji Trophy match against Karnataka, and the genesis of "Chikoo", the nickname that stuck after Kohli turned up for an under-15 match in Mumbai with a new hairdo, his hair standing up like the rabbit Chikoo in the comic, Champak.

Lokapally, however, fails to mention the character from Champak, instead stating that the sobriquet was bestowed upon Kohli due to his resemblance to chikoo the fruit.

The event that changed a young Kohli's life - his father's death - is described in vivid detail by Lokapally, with then Delhi captain Mithun Manhas, Karnataka coach Venkatesh Prasad, and his batting partner that day, Puneet Bisht, all poignantly narrating the events of that frosty December afternoon.

But perhaps the most beautiful reminiscence is that of Kohli gifting Sharma, his childhood mentor, a Skoda Rapid car on Teachers' Day in 2014. The gesture, Lokapally writes, was a reminder of Kohli's humility and respect for elders.

Driven, though, truly scores not through its delectable anecdotes but through Lokapally's ability to get inside Kohli's mind. Over the years, several books on some of India's top cricketers have failed to fully grasp the thinking that makes these men so great. Books on Mahendra Singh Dhoni - the finest thinking cricketer of his time - for example, have erred terribly while trying to capture his unique, unflappable reading of the game. Even his biopic, M S Dhoni: The Untold Story, fails miserably on that count.

In Driven, Lokapally manages to cull out Kohli's intriguing, often elusive personality. "He (Kohli) developed skills in every aspect of the game. He just wanted to be involved all the time. It was difficult to keep him away from action. He wanted to bat, bowl and field in all possible positions," writes Lokapally. Clearly, the gumption and the implacable will to be good at everything there is had its origins at a very young age.

Moreover, Lokapally conjures up a splendid critique of Kohli's batsmanship - the analysis of the cover drive, the shots on the leg side, as well as his ability to play a good square cut from a young age make for compelling reading.

Kohli is far from the swashbuckling, ball-crushing batsman that the modern game perennially craves. He isn't the greatest innovator either. He is just an all-round batting monster whose last shot is hit with the same earnestness as his first, the beauty in each stroke startlingly palpable.

Lokapally sums up Kohli's genius succinctly: "When Tendulkar or Sehwag got out, the spectators would depart too. Virat does not command that coveted position yet. The contest, however, intensifies or dies depending on Virat's show with the bat."

Driven is not one of those beautifully-crafted cricket books that makes you unfailingly fall in love with the player or the sport even more. But it is a well-researched account of a player's life, who, by the time he gets done, will probably go down as the finest batsman this country has ever seen. Driven is a great starting point to know why.