Kohli's Bengaluru return: Distant and low-key but familiarly effective

The sound was unmistakable. A sharp crack of the ball flying off Virat Kohli's bat and thudding into the picket fence at the cover boundary. Kohli stood and slammed Andhra captain Nitish Reddy for a six in the fifth over of the chase.

With the fixture played behind closed doors, far from the bustle of the Chinnaswamy, the acoustics felt almost exaggerated. 34 kilometres away from the iconic stadium, there was no crowd to absorb the noise. Here every contact between bat and ball was heard, and off Kohli's bat, it carried significance.

Kohli's big return to the city was denied all the bells and whistles owing to security concerns. He played Ranji Trophy in January this year in front of a 12,000-strong crowd in Delhi, but this was his first List A match for Delhi since September 2013.

But the intensity synonymous with this 37-year-old one-format India cricketer came through. It wasn't until around 1:30 pm that Kohli the batter came into his 50-over element. A handful of fans watched from the other side of a wall fixed with barbed wires, all in the hope of a fleeting glimpse. Those who returned after lunch got what they came for, albeit from afar.

For the first few hours when Andhra batted, Kohli was deployed all around inside the 30-yard circle—putting in dives at cover and mid-on, and later making saves at short third. He was also always part of the three-man conferences involving Rishabh Pant and the bowler.

He emerged with the bat in hand in the first over of the chase, starting with a second-ball drive down the ground. Over the next 32 overs, the thwacking sound of ball hitting his bat became a noticeably loud and recurring feature of Delhi's chase.

The headline-grabbers of this opening day of the Vijay Hazare Trophy were mostly elsewhere—Vaibhav Suryavanshi broke records, a couple of incredible chases ensued, and even Rohit Sharma made a six-laden return. Kohli hit just three sixes but his 101-ball 131 had 14 fours and, more significantly, 39 singles.

Kohli built this innings like a true Kohli archetype—spinners were cut off the back foot, quicks dabbed down to third man. He even came away unscathed against his bugbear, left-arm spin, seeing off Saurabh Kumar through the middle. It was not chanceless—he was dropped twice—but it came with the familiarity of years of such knocks.

For all the discourse around 2027 ODI World Cup selection, the BCCI can kick that can down the road given the time still to go. That said, questions that swirled about his capabilities after a couple of ODIs in Australia were quickly dissipated at home against South Africa. Kohli arrived in Bengaluru fresh from four statement knocks—74* in Sydney, 135 in Ranchi, 102 in Raipur, and 65* in Vizag.

By the end, there wasn't much else to glean from this 50-over outing against Andhra, except that Kohli continues to be in fine nick.

In the afterglow of the recent South Africa ODIs, Kohli had said: "I don't think I have played at this level for a good 2-3 years now, and I feel really free in my mind. Just the whole game is coming together nicely."

On a hot Wednesday afternoon, where he swapped India colours for the Delhi shade, and wild overflowing adulation for stretches of empty silence, it showed.