Is Virat Kohli the greatest ever in cricket? Why it doesn’t really matter

Virat Kohli is in a special zone right now. It is a zone which few sportpersons can dream to touch – a zone where ultimately even the most glorious and vivid of descriptions fall short. His 919 runs in the current Indian Premier League season have put him head and shoulders ahead of any other batsmen in the nine editions of the tournament

The curious thing about sport is that it abhors a vacuum. So when legends fade and ultimately bow out, the desperation to install a new one automatically gains momentum. It is a trend which is visible in almost every sport.

In tennis, discussions never cease about whether Novak Djokovic is the GOAT (Greatest of All Time). In football, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are mercilessly observed, day in day out, for any sign of the waning of their halos.

And so it is in cricket. The noted statistician Mohandas Menon put out a tweet on Sunday comparing Kohli’s rich haul in the Indian Premier League to the great Don Bradman scoring 974 runs in a single series in 1930, considered one of the seminal records of the game.

It ruffled quite a few feathers and there was an inevitable backlash.

So how good is Virat Kohli? As good as Sachin Tendulkar? Even Donald Bradman? Better than the both of them?

How about this: It doesn’t matter.

Legacies are not transferable

While this obsession with debating the greatest starts off on a healthy note, it then descends into a arena where someone or the other has to be denigrated to prove a point. So for example, Virat Kohli is better than Sachin Tendulkar because his best knocks have come in winning chases. Contrastingly, Virat Kohli is only getting runs against lower-quality bowling attacks while Sachin Tendulkar batted against far superior bowlers.

Or, to go further back in history, Sunil Gavaskar and batsmen of his generation were the greatest as they batted in an era of uncovered pitches, minimal protection, and bowlers operating unhampered by any of the bouncer restrictions they face now.

Perhaps all the above may be true. But does it really take away from any of their greatness? And do any of the comparisons hold true? Virat Kohli is the finest batsmen in a generation but by elevating him above Tendulkar, isn’t there a danger that we are diminishing Tendulkar's stature? And is that fair to either Tendulkar or Kohli?

How do we compare?

The other interesting thing about cricket is that despite its focus on individual brilliance, it remains a game which has dramatically changed over its history. An outsider to the game would not be far from the mark if they came to the conclusion that Gavaskar, Tendulkar and Kohli were playing three different sports.

It is worth remembering that much has changed in the ensuing years. Tendulkar’s era saw none of the madness of Twenty20, it had different rules on field restrictions and no such things as “free hits” which have become ubiquitous in the modern game.

The problem with comparisons is that none of them take into account any of the variables. So coming back to Menon’s tweet, Virat Kohli’s 919 runs and Donald Bradman’s 974 are put on an equal footing, when in reality, they are hardly comparable. In fact, it would be grossly unfair to even compare the two achievements, considering the vastly different situations in which the runs were made in.

Here’s a suggestion then: how about we pause and sit back and just enjoy the brilliance of Virat Kohli? There is no telling where he will go now, but he is already on a peak of his own. He is a joy to watch even when viewed from the prism of singularity – his unbridled passion sneaking through his every move, his other-wordly placement of the cricket ball, and of course, his perfect execution of a chase.

Virat Kohli is not the next Sachin Tendulkar just like Roger Federer is not the next Peter Sampras. But like FedEx, Virat Kohli is just Virat Kohli, one of his kind. And instead of engaging in meaningless comparisons, let us just sit, pause and admire.