Old heroes never die, they just become celebrity endorsers. Virat Kohli might be walking away from Test cricket, but he is not going anywhere. In a country where cricket is both a stage and a sanctuary, Kohli has long outgrown the role of just a player. He has become a brand, an idea, a way of being, and such things do not retire easily.
It takes a rare combination of skill, timing, personality, and narrative to become a marketable athlete in India. Many cricketers have flourished on the field, but only a few have managed to parlay their success into an enduring cultural presence. Kohli is one of them, not only because of what he has done, but because of what he has come to represent.
He began as the brash upstartpetulant, combative, loud and, for a while, his barely contained aggression was his brand. He looked perpetually amped on the field and seemed to carry an inner reservoir of anger, which he gave vent to frequently, most notably when he scored a century. Celebrations were accompanied by some choice words in Punjabi, which were not particularly difficult to lip-read.
But as his game matured, so did his persona. He turned inward and worked messianically on himself. He became a symbol of relentless self-belief, of intense discipline, of the new Indian athlete who wasn’t content to merely compete but demanded dominance. In that sense, Kohli’s real product was not performance, but a punishing self-belief, that bordered on the martial.
He professionalised himself into a kind of hyper-functioning machine — his fitness regime, his obsessive commitment to form, his ability to rebound from failure. He may have been exceptionally successful, but he did not make it look easy. In a world where we look for quick fixes and easy answers, Kohli’s message was unequivocal – you haveto die trying. Nothing less.
If Sachin Tendulkar, who had received cricket as a blessing, a divine music he could pluck out of the ether, Kohli’s story is refreshingly terrestrial, sculpted himself into greatness. If Tendulkar was divine grace, Kohli was bloodyminded grit.
These weren’t just personal traits; they were signals to the wider culture of what success could look like in an age of global standards. Brands loved this. He was both aspirational and relatable: the middle-class boy who got better by outworking everyone else.
And then there was the softening. Marriage to Anushka Sharma gave him access to another cultural ecosystem — the glamour, visibility, and emotional immediacy of Bollywood. Their carefully curated public life gave him a new texture: not just alpha energy, but vulnerability, balance, fatherhood. As a brand, he now offered not just competitiveness, but completeness.
So what happens next? In brand terms, this is less a retirement than a repositioning. With Test cricket behind him, Kohli is no longer bound by the rhythms of five-day cricket or the demands of proving himself. He can choose visibility over volume. He can pivot towards lifestyle, mentorship, philanthropy, or entrepreneurial ventures. His brand can now afford to age, and aging — done well — is a form of deepening.
More importantly, he remains an icon in a country where icons are scarce and rarely dethroned. Like Tendulkar and Dhoni before him, Kohli will continue to be seen, heard, endorsed, quoted, and emulated. He is embedded in the cultural fabric. His voice will matter, his choices will be noticed.
And eventually, while the cover drives may stop, the camera will not.
In the end, a brand like Kohli’s doesn’t just sell products — it sells possibility. It sells the idea of being self-made through will, ambition, and fire. That idea has many innings still to play.
(TOI COLUMNIST SANTOSH DESAI IS A SOCIAL COMMENTATOR AND ADVERTISING PROFESSIONAL)
It takes a rare combination of skill, timing, personality, and narrative to become a marketable athlete in India. Many cricketers have flourished on the field, but only a few have managed to parlay their success into an enduring cultural presence. Kohli is one of them, not only because of what he has done, but because of what he has come to represent.
He began as the brash upstartpetulant, combative, loud and, for a while, his barely contained aggression was his brand. He looked perpetually amped on the field and seemed to carry an inner reservoir of anger, which he gave vent to frequently, most notably when he scored a century. Celebrations were accompanied by some choice words in Punjabi, which were not particularly difficult to lip-read.
But as his game matured, so did his persona. He turned inward and worked messianically on himself. He became a symbol of relentless self-belief, of intense discipline, of the new Indian athlete who wasn’t content to merely compete but demanded dominance. In that sense, Kohli’s real product was not performance, but a punishing self-belief, that bordered on the martial.
He professionalised himself into a kind of hyper-functioning machine — his fitness regime, his obsessive commitment to form, his ability to rebound from failure. He may have been exceptionally successful, but he did not make it look easy. In a world where we look for quick fixes and easy answers, Kohli’s message was unequivocal – you haveto die trying. Nothing less.
If Sachin Tendulkar, who had received cricket as a blessing, a divine music he could pluck out of the ether, Kohli’s story is refreshingly terrestrial, sculpted himself into greatness. If Tendulkar was divine grace, Kohli was bloodyminded grit.
These weren’t just personal traits; they were signals to the wider culture of what success could look like in an age of global standards. Brands loved this. He was both aspirational and relatable: the middle-class boy who got better by outworking everyone else.
And then there was the softening. Marriage to Anushka Sharma gave him access to another cultural ecosystem — the glamour, visibility, and emotional immediacy of Bollywood. Their carefully curated public life gave him a new texture: not just alpha energy, but vulnerability, balance, fatherhood. As a brand, he now offered not just competitiveness, but completeness.
So what happens next? In brand terms, this is less a retirement than a repositioning. With Test cricket behind him, Kohli is no longer bound by the rhythms of five-day cricket or the demands of proving himself. He can choose visibility over volume. He can pivot towards lifestyle, mentorship, philanthropy, or entrepreneurial ventures. His brand can now afford to age, and aging — done well — is a form of deepening.
More importantly, he remains an icon in a country where icons are scarce and rarely dethroned. Like Tendulkar and Dhoni before him, Kohli will continue to be seen, heard, endorsed, quoted, and emulated. He is embedded in the cultural fabric. His voice will matter, his choices will be noticed.
And eventually, while the cover drives may stop, the camera will not.
In the end, a brand like Kohli’s doesn’t just sell products — it sells possibility. It sells the idea of being self-made through will, ambition, and fire. That idea has many innings still to play.
(TOI COLUMNIST SANTOSH DESAI IS A SOCIAL COMMENTATOR AND ADVERTISING PROFESSIONAL)
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