Kohli, Rohit and the move from individuals to symbols

It is amazing how some fans line up behind either Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma to the exclusion of the other. Both these magnificent players have served the country with distinction and changed the culture of the Indian team. That’s a minor detail for the trolls. Encouraged by the anonymity and illogic of social media, they are either Sharmaites or Kohlians, seldom both.

Kohli is India’s most successful Test captain, while Rohit leads in white ball cricket. Yet, each one’s success or failure is put down to all kinds of imaginary reasons, from the political and geographic to the selectorial and providential.

The so-called fans have been calling for chief selector Ajit Agarkar’s head for what is a logical, cricketing decision: to replace Rohit Sharma with Shubman Gill as India’s ODI captain. One fan tweeted that Agarkar has “ruined our adulthood.” People have heart attacks, lose loved ones or survive accidents without these ruining their adulthood. Perhaps I am missing something here.

Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli celebrate the team’s win in the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 final against New Zealand, at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Sunday.
| Photo Credit:
ANI

Many fans don’t love cricket so much as cricketers, and that too in a gossipy, low-humour manner, focusing on their love lives and public persona rather than on what it takes to perfect a googly or a pull shot. Does the Rohit troll versus Kohli troll battle suggest deeper cultural schisms: Mumbai vs Delhi, business vs politics, West vs North, Marathi vs Punjabi? Does success convert individuals into symbols? Is that the price they pay?

Often the media get dragged into it too. You can’t say anything good about Rohit without raising the hackles of the Kohlians, and vice versa. More than four years ago after a tour of England, I wrote in these columns that Kohli did a great job, but Kohlism needed to be reviewed. Kohlism, defined as “a philosophy where hostility and retaliating before being provoked is key…. (and) there is the notion sometimes a victory is not enough; it has to be accompanied by humiliation, a word that has no place in sport.”

Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, on 5th day of the first cricket Test match between India and New Zealand at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, in Bengaluru on October 20, 2024.
| Photo Credit:
K. MURALI KUMAR

For weeks after that, I was trolled on a daily basis. Even now, at least once a week or so, someone comes across the column and retweets it, leading to yet another round of abuse in different languages, from ungrammatical English to Hindi and Punjabi rich in curse words. One of my favourite responses is, “Do your job of sucking up to China.” Huh? When Rohit did well as captain, trolls again retweeted that describing Kohli as a loser.

It is not unusual for a team to have players who divide loyalties. An earlier generation will recall that Sunil Gavaskar, the epitome of correct technique, was seen as the antithesis of Gundappa Viswanath, all creativity and grace. They were the Apollo and Dionysius of Indian batting, the head and the heart. School playgrounds saw much teasing and taunting when one succeeded, and the other didn’t. But that was all in fun, and forgiveable in schoolchildren, each of whom felt their own hero was superior to all others’. There were Batman vs Superman arguments too, for example.

But the viciousness of today’s trolling is from another planet. How players keep their sanity after the trolling provoked by a dropped catch or a loss in a single game is one of the mysteries of the modern game. Even if you decide to ignore social media, there are enough friends and fans around to quote these to you.

When Mohammed Shami was trolled after India lost a match to Pakistan, Kohli was one of the few who sprang to his support, calling the trolls the “lowest level of human potential.” He trolled the trolls with “It’s a good thing we are taking the field (and not) a few spineless people on social media.”

Rohit Sharma famously put it in perspective after being dropped from a Test match and in the midst of social media celebration or mourning with, “The sun will rise again tomorrow.” The sun did, and so did Rohit, from the depths of despair.

As he will again. It is difficult to see him or Kohli in the Indian team at the next ODI World Cup in 2027. Rohit will be 40 while Kohli’s 40th will be during the tournament. And the sun will rise again whatever happens.