King Kohli Went To The Arctic And Still Bumped Into India Fans
When Virat Kohli, one of the most worshipped sportsmen on the planet, tries to escape the madding crowd, it turns out even the edge of the Arctic Circle is not far enough.
It was there in December, in the Lapland town of Rovaniemi, that he and Bollywood star Anushka Sharma travelled for their honeymoon.
Perhaps hoping [/news/christmas/index.html Christmas] would come early, they reasoned no one would find them in the land of Santa Claus and promptly walked into a coffee shop to find three Indian tourists gawping at them.
Virat Kohli and his wife Anushka Sharma went to Lapland on their honeymoon last year
The India captain and Bollywood star are worshipped by a country of more than one billion
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A friendly conversation ensued and the tourists agreed not to post pictures of the couple - ‘Virushka', as they are known in India - on social media.
But it was a reminder of a basic truth. For Kohli, the concept of privacy is no more than a nice idea. His career is increasingly defined by how he copes with this reality.
The quick answer is that he has coped very well indeed.
Kohli is the best all-format batsman in the world, averaging 53 in Tests, a remarkable 58 in ODIs and nearly 49 in Twenty20 internationals.
His net worth is said to be around £45million and he attracts sponsorship endorsements as if he's collecting football stickers.
Speaking of which, he co-owns FC Goa, to say nothing of a tennis franchise called UAE Royals and a chain of gyms.
Anushka, for her part, is Indian cinema royalty.
He is the best all-format batsman in the world across Tests, ODIs and Twenty20 internationals
Earlier this year, Time magazine included him in their list of the 100 most influential people in the world, athletes or otherwise.
When an Indian journalist asked Joe Root at his pre-Test press conference whether England were ‘obsessed' with Kohli, the irony hardly needed explaining.
The whole of India obsesses over his every cough and splutter. It could be a problem, then, that he suffers from claustrophobia.
In a country of 1.3 billion people, many of them armed with mobile phones and poised for selfies, this is not ideal.
As Kohli recently told ESPN's Wright Thompson: ‘If I see two people coming at me with a phone, I panic.'
Perhaps Kohli's greatest achievement is to slip effortlessly into the shoes of Sachin Tendulkar. Many thought this impossible, on the grounds that you can't push Zeus off the top of Mount Olympus.
Kohli is pursued by fans wielding mobile phones whenever he ventures out in public
Time magazine included Kohli in their list of the 100 most influential people in the world
But while Kohli is more naturally aggressive than his hero, he shares Tendulkar's off-field humility.
He also shares an important biographical detail.
Both men lost their fathers at crucial stages of their career - Tendulkar during the 1999 World Cup in England, when he was 26, Kohli while he was on the brink of making it big at the age of 18.
And both used the tragedy to galvanise their cricket.
Tendulkar famously rejoined India's World Cup campaign after the funeral and scored an unbeaten 140 against Kenya at Bristol.
In 2006, Kohli was 40 not out for Delhi against Karnataka when he heard that his father Prem had died from a heart attack at the age of 54.
He continued his innings the next day, made 90, then headed for the funeral.
In the past Kohli has been criticised for being over the top with his celebrations of a wicket
Kohli, pictured at Wimbledon in 2015, struggles to keep a low profile as a sporting star in India
‘I still remember the night my father passed away, as it was the hardest time in my life,' he said later.
‘But the call to play the morning after my father's death came instinctively to me.
I called my coach in the morning. I said I wanted to play, because for me not completing a cricket game is a sin.' The experience changed him.
His mother, Saroj, noticed immediately: ‘Overnight he became a much more mature person.'
And Kohli made a promise to himself: ‘I had one thing in my mind — that I have to play for my country and live that dream for my dad.'
At times, the passion has burned with an intensity that has not been to everyone's taste.
His wicket celebrations can veer close to send-offs. Watch how close he runs to a dismissed batsman, fists clenched, his excitement apparently giving way to some deeper rage.
The India captain spends no energy reading comments about his game so he can focus
And on England's tour of India in 2016-17, Ben Stokes made it clear he thought different rules were being applied to the two teams by match referees.
When Kohli gave him a mouthful on his dismissal in the third Test in Mohali, officials reprimanded Stokes for retaliating.
Then again, if you were shouldering the hopes of a billion and more, it's possible you might occasionally put a foot wrong. And Kohli is learning to deal with his fate as the centre of attention.
This summer will be no different. Thanks to his struggles when India last visited four years ago, when he averaged 14, his success or otherwise this time will top the news agenda.
But he is philosophical about the situation.
‘Back in the day when I did not know better, these things used to bother me, because I used to read a lot,' he said on the eve of the first Test at Edgbaston. ‘Honestly, I don't read anything now.
My only focus is on my preparation and where the team has to head.
Kohli is blocking out all irrelevant noise to concentrate on beating England in their series
‘If I waste my energy on all these things, then I'm compromising on my mindset already.
Because when I walk out to bat, it's me who has the bat in hand — not people on the outside who have to write and predict things.
‘I'm not in a frame of mind where I need to prove myself in any country.
‘Over the last few years I've been more comfortable with my head space of how I think about the game.
I've worked hard on it. I'm pretty confident of my own ability and that's the only thing I'm going to focus on.'
Which is just as well because if Kohli fails this time, allinfootballncricket.mystrikingly.com those Indian tourists in the Arctic Circle may be less easy to placate.
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