Running like a 'crazy man' - The Virat Kohli way

When Virat Kohli walked off the Premadasa Stadium in Colombo after a stupendous 122* off 94 balls, it was the 32nd time he finished a 100-plus innings with a 100-plus strike-rate in ODIs. Only two of his 47 hundreds in this format came at a sub-90 strike-rate. 

But what's most remarkable was that Kohli scored only 44.2% of his runs in boundaries despite maintaining a high strike rate (129.8). The figure is roughly similar to Kohli's career boundary-run percentage (44%). The innings against Pakistan summed up how Kohli goes about his business and why he is one of the format's greatest players.

Kohli was not at his fluent best when he reached his fifty in the 39th over and at that time, his partner KL Rahul was doing bulk of the scoring. But even if Kohli was not at his best, he brought up his half-century off just 55 balls. He opened up his shoulders after that to bring up the second fifty off just 29 balls. 

But in those 29 balls, only four went to the boundary and 30 runs came off 25 non-boundary balls. Kohli ran as many as nine twos during that period, enabling him to accelerate even after not hitting many boundaries. That has been the Virat Kohli template for years and he rarely gets tired even at the back end of the innings largely because of his supreme fitness.

Sanjay Manjrekar, who was on air during the Pakistan game, wrote on X, "When Virat got to his 100, he had only 36 runs in boundaries. Bulk of the runs came through sheer hard running between the wickets. In hot conditions not too many batters can pull that off. Virat's fitness is a huge part of his greatness! It's like no other batting great."

Kohli has been far ahead of his contemporaries in this aspect. For instance, Rahul, who partnered him in the epic 233-stand on Monday, scored a fine 111 off 106 balls. 60 of his runs came in boundaries and the percentage stood at 54%. Although Rahul had a much higher boundary percentage, Kohli pipped him when it came to strike-rate. 

When he is in the middle, he often turns ones into twos and twos into threes. "Virat Kohli not only runs for his runs, he also runs for other players so fast. He always pushes & motivates his batting partners to run fast," said Rahul.

It was visible that Rahul, who was just back from injury, was tested by Kohli's exceptional running between the wickets. Waqar Younis, working for Star Sports as a broadcaster, said, "I felt sorry for KL Rahul because he was coming out of injury and he had to run with this man. He runs like a crazy man. Doesn't miss a single, doesn't miss any extra run because he wants to be the best."

Kohli, after Monday's game, said that this pattern has worked for him very well before as well. One example is his unbeaten 160 against South Africa in Cape Town in 2018 which is one of his greatest ODI knocks and there he ran for 100 of his runs as the only Indian batter to date. 

And he does that with ease because of his fitness.

"I'm always prepared to help the team in different ways. Today, KL got a great start and my job was just to rotate strike. I take a lot of pride in trying to push for easy runs, pushing for a double is as easy as they come," he said after the match. 

Kohli touched a mind-boggling top speed of 31 kmh, as revealed during one of the packages made by the Star Sports on Monday. Even a footballer running at such a pace is considered quite fast. Four years ago, a 34-year old Cristiano Ronaldo sprinted at 33.1 kmh for Juventus against Napoli to show tremendous athleticism. 

Kohli, now 34 too, said numerous times that Ronaldo is his favourite athlete. Both of them are fitness freaks and that's one reason why they have seen success even after going past their prime.