Dream wedding

The wedding of Team India skipper Virat Kohli with actress Anushka Sharma in a rugged Tuscan setting in Italy personifies the dream every Indian kid may have been nursing. This isn’t the first time an Indian captain is marrying a glamorous Bollywood star. But none of his predecessors, including the former Nawab of Pataudi, enjoyed the dazzling career of cricketing success and matching financial rewards that catapulted him amid global sporting stars earning top dollar. The very private setting, festivities, exotic locale and designerwear may have been Anushka’s dream that fructified in a wedding sans paparazzi and media. The couple’s earnings may be stratospheric in Indian terms, but the happiness created by their union denotes the pair’s popularity.

While Bollywood will look forward to greater successes for Anushka, it’s Kohli’s role that will keep assuming more importance as he leads Team India. He is uniquely placed to become the first batsman ever to top the ratings in Tests, ODIs and T20 simultaneously if he carries his rich lode of form into South Africa. He has to displace Australian skipper Steve smith to grab that honour. We were reminded of how pivotal Kohli is to the team’s fortunes as Indian batsmen failed to live up to the challenge of seaming conditions in the Himalayas. But Kohli was destined to be in such a pre-eminent position considering how one day as a young man he went to resume an innings on the morning of his father’s death and faced a double whammy in the umpire giving him out wrongly when short of his century.