A foreboding, neon-drenched cityscape. A giant, airless concrete bowl filled with terrifying droids mewling for blood: not dissimilar, in many respects, to the Optus Stadium in Perth. The bowlers have wheels – not in the euphemistic Martin McCague sense, but in the sense of being, literally, yellow robots with wheels. And at the centre of it all, the last man standing, indeed the last hope of all humanity: an intrepid and weirdly pale Virat Kohli. It’s a younger version of Kohli: before he hit the protein shakes, before the jaw filled out and was overrun by a thicket of beard. And while the scenario might be wildly fictional, the character has been drawn from life: a promising teenage batsman from Delhi with a few anger issues and a nagging feeling that somehow, somewhere, he has a higher calling. Well, here it is. The humans need six to win off the last ball, and the last robot delivery was clocked at 700mph on the speed gun.
Welcome to the future, and in more senses than one. It’s the opening scene of Super V, a new children’s cartoon series currently airing on the Disney Channel in India and Star Plus in the UK. And as the animated Kohli inevitably hoists the ball over the mid-wicket boundary, it’s impossible to escape the sensation that we’re watching a quietly seminal moment in cricket’s relationship with mainstream culture: the point at which a cricketer – albeit, the world’s most famous ever subtly becomes Something Else. In Super V, the transformation takes place before our eyes. The young Virat, it turns out, possesses mystical superpowers that prove equally handy at fending off school bullies, picking up length or thwarting an evil scientist trying to enslave the entire human race using advanced neural capture technology. The animation is fairly basic, the script elementary, the few jokes about as funny as a village sledge. “To attain your superpowers,” Virat’s grandfather tells him, “you will need to clear some tests.” “Tests? Won’t a T20 do?” a beamish Virat replies. BoJack Horseman this is not. Even so, there’s something both vaguely thrilling and vaguely disarming about seeing our beloved game repackaged as a mass-market entertainment. Often, when cricket is portrayed in British culture, it’s diluted or demystified for a wider audience. Here, by contrast, there’s an entire plot element that revolves around Kohli shuffling across his crease to protect his stumps, thus making him vulnerable to the outside edge. And given the current vogue for innovation and crossover appeal, it’s only natural to wonder how the burgeoning cricketing superhero genre might look with an English slant. Imagine: SuperWoakes, a mild-mannered Birmingham-based hero whose special power – an immaculate line outside off stump – is threatened only by the unwelcome appearance of his arch nemesis, Kookaburra. Or perhaps SuperCook, in which the former England captain dons his protective goggles and Barbour cape in pursuit of his noble quest: to hunt down and kill every last deer in England. For now, though, Kohli stands alone. And for all the scrapes and scuffles encountered by his animated avatar, perhaps the most telling segments come when the real-life Kohli appears at the end of each episode to sum up what we’ve all learned, and dispense some sage life advice. “One thing is certain,” he announces in one of them. “The world needs heroes. And we all have something super about us.” And so, while it’s tempting to see this foray as merely the latest front in Kohli’s ever-expanding portfolio of commercial interests, perhaps the real motivation here goes beyond pure finance. The biggest leap a professional sportsperson can take is the one that springs them from the narrow confines of their own sport into the wilds of wider culture. Often, their athletic prowess is converted into a sort of proxy morality, where the ability to hit or kick a ball well renders them worthy not just of praise, but veneration: the sportsperson as personal brand, icon, object of devotion. The greatest athletes have always sought to bequeath a legacy that transcends anything they achieved on the field of play. Michael Jordan had his trainers. Lionel Messi has his theme park. Muhammad Ali had his long history of political activism. And by allowing himself to be consecrated into the ranks of the superhuman, Kohli is demonstrating that he, too, believes himself to have a higher calling. Checkout ipl schedule 2020 to watch more of kohli!
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