Soon after Virat Kohli announced his departure as Test Captain of the Indian cricket team after the defeat in the Test against South Africa, emotions from all around the world poured in. People from all across the world weighed in on his abilities and how he performed on the field to help the Indian cricket team make victory a habit. Many left-liberals, in particular, chimed up with their thoughts on Kohli.
Amidst this, a 10-year-old tweet of NDTV news anchor Ravish Kumar surfaced on social media in which he had slammed Virat Kohli as a “Loafer” and one who does only advertisements seldom focusing on cricket. Ravish pulled the tweet from his timeline just hours after it became viral.
— anonymous (@dextermonstr) January 16, 2022
This sudden flip-flop of Ravish Kumar justifies the point that how actual performance is hardly a criterion for the left-liberals to pick their heroes and all of their endorsement of incidents and personalities is entirely opportunistic.
Virat is currently the ‘favourite’ of the ‘liberals’ in India for having spoken up against Diwali firecrackers and many had claimed that he is facing the ‘wrath’ for standing up for Mohammad Shami when he was trolled by Pakistanis after the T20 World Cup loss against Pakistan. It was very obvious that the Pakistanis had peddled the ‘Shami abused for being a Muslim’ narrative and ‘liberals’ amplified it. Along with Kohli, other cricketers had also extended solidarity with Shami. Except, everyone then just assumed that Kohli’s captaincy controversy in past few months is because of his ‘standing up for Shami’.
Has Virat Kohli paid the price for speaking up against hate? Did he jump or was he pushed?
— Swati Chaturvedi (@bainjal) January 15, 2022
Here is how another abusive troll masquerading as journalist Swati Chaturvedi floated the same conspiracy theory early in the day. Suddenly, the fact that Kohli may not be in his best form as a cricketer and athlete is lost on the ones in the newsrooms.
It’s worth noting that none of them spoke up while Virat Kohli was being a hyper-nationalist and scoring on the field to make the country proud. Kohli’s annoyance at people admiring other foreign players was never a justification for left-liberals to cry out, but he was suddenly elevated to hero status after defending Shami. His failing performance on the field drew little attention from them.
In 2018, Naseeruddin Shah, a Bollywood actor, dubbed Virat Kohli the world’s worst behaved player in a Facebook post. This happened after Virat Kohli ridiculed a fan in 2018 who stated he prefers English and Australian players to Indian batting. Kohli had advised that the fan leave India. The statement quickly went viral. Shah was perplexed by Kohli advising the fan to leave India and reside in a country he prefers. But today, the same set of ‘liberals’ will make a victim out of Kohli.
The liberals are trying to portray his decision to resign as a “punishment” for his defence of Shami shortly after his announcement. None of them can accept the reality that his performance as a captain in cricket has been subpar, despite the fact that there is ample evidence to support this fact. Kohli has a total of 70 centuries to his name in his international career. He hit 27 centuries in Tests and 43 in ODIs out of a total of 70. He has, however, failed to hit a century in the last two years.
When Kohli was criticised on social media for giving selective advice on how Hindus should celebrate Diwali while being silent on Muslim and other festivals that feature large-scale violent festivities, the left rushed to his defence. The Indian left’s true character is opportunistic in its totality, as seen by this bogus pretence of support for like-minded events and individuals. They abandon anything and anyone who does not seem to be in the line of subscription with their views. Kohli is merely another feeding chance for these hungry vultures.
It just goes out to show that the ‘liberals’ don’t really care about his real performance as an athlete, but as long as his views fuel their propaganda, Kohli is just a useful tool for them.
