Before the noise, a Kohli moment at Eden

The last time Virat Kohli walked out at Eden Gardens, he didn't just lose a match. He lost his cool.

A high full toss from Harshit Rana, a return catch, an animated discussion with the umpires over the height of that delivery and eventually a sanction for dissent. Royal Challengers Bengaluru lost by one run, their sixth defeat on the trot, and the season looked close to being over at the halfway stage.

Almost a year on from that night, and two days before the start of IPL 2025, the setting at Eden felt familiar. The energy, however, was entirely different. The chaos of two teams training on either side of the Eden Gardens didn't quite reach the man in the middle. Kohli was there, but he wasn't quite sweating it out in the nets. He wasn't even the usual focal point of everything humorous. Instead, he sat cross-legged and alone with his kit bag, running his hands over a couple of unsponsored bats.

This was a quieter kind of work he was putting in ahead of a big season. Choosing the right bat, knocking the ball around with it and feeling the balance. He liked one bat more than the other, peeled and pasted a fresh MRF sticker onto it, taped the bottom and tested it with a few gentle knocks in the outfield. Now he bounces a ball on it. The higher the ball goes, the louder the cheers from the few hundreds are. Then he walks over to the nets.

When he faced his first delivery, something didn't feel right. No, not with his new bat but something underfoot. So he switched ends, walking to the other side of the practice pitch, such that he was now facing the group of kids who were cheering for him. Kohli indulged them with a couple of straight hits, the kind that would've been PowerPlay boundaries over mid-off. When he hit them, it felt like a match night at Eden.

Amidst drops of rain, manic practice routines and preparations for the opening ceremony, Kohli's moment stood out. Just a boy and his bat, under the floodlights, cutting through the noise and soaking it all in at a venue he drew level with Sachin Tendulkar.

It was a poignant visual. A man who no longer plays T20 internationals. Who is no longer the RCB captain. Who, in a league that has only grown younger and louder, still manages to hold his own. For a format that rarely lets players age gracefully, Kohli is still here and still central to his team's season. And he still fusses over the little things: how the sticker is aligned on his bat or whether a piece of cellotape is poking out from the toe-end.

RCB will hope that the new bat gets him going like it did last season, when he won the Orange Cap, his improved game against spin helping the side to spark a remarkable comeback. They went from a 1-7 record to making the playoffs, with Kohli's strike-rate against spin jumping by nearly 15 points compared to the first half of the season. He even brought out the slog sweep, a shot he had long resisted, and used it to good effect for the remainder of the season.

This year begins with perhaps the biggest examination of that evolution. KKR, the team he faces in the season opener, have bowled the highest proportion of spin in the IPL across the last three seasons (47.1%). At Eden, even on a flat pitch, that number can often be even higher. Sunil Narine and Varun Chakaravarthy aren't just good spinners; they are among the few who have held their own in a format that's becoming harder and harder for their kind. And they have done it at a venue that's gone from being low and slow to anything but that.

Chakaravarthy has taken the most IPL wickets since 2023. He's gone from being a primarily side-spin bowler to one who now relies on over-spin, and comes into the season on the back of strong performances in the Champions Trophy. Narine, meanwhile, is no longer the mystery spinner he once was. The action has changed, the aura has dimmed and bowling isn't perhaps even his primary role in the team anymore. And yet, he still finds a way to make an impact.

For Kohli then, it'll be as much a test of playing spin innovatively as it'll be a test of relevance. At 36, that's unfortunately how the ball rolls. The league has changed. Strike rotation has been devalued. Younger batters, bred in the IPL system, are pushing through. And yet, here he is, still evolving. He's no longer in India's T20 plans but continues to find ways to contribute. He doesn't lead RCB now, he hasn't for a few years, but he stood close to Faf du Plessis and will no doubt guide the new captain Rajat Patidar in his own way.

Which is why there's something endearing about watching Kohli simply be at RCB. Not in a throwback sort of way. Not because he's chasing legacy. But because of the quiet comfort of consistency that he brings. The league keeps evolving: there are ten teams now, there are updated kits every year, there are as many as five new captains in this edition, and new complications with respect to rules, but Kohli remains. Familiar, focused and folding himself into another season like he always has.

His continued presence perhaps isn't owed to reinvention. Nor to redemption. It might just be love, the quiet kind that hides in small rituals: a freshly placed sticker, a strip of tape smoothed out just right, the silence that somehow makes noise just for him.

At Eden, he looked ready. Not to erupt like he has at Eden before. But to begin again.