Kohli, after all this time, just for this moment

Virat Kohli just didn't know what to do with himself. It had finally happened. Josh Hazlewood had bowled a dot ball on the second ball of the last over. Punjab Kings now needed 29 to win off the last four balls. He later suggested to AB de Villiers, friend and former Royal Challengers Bengaluru team-mate, with whom he put together many magical stands, that he was struggling to hold back tears. Now, though, it was mathematically impossible to lose if Hazlewood didn't concede extras. Kohli has faced enough of Hazlewood to know that wasn't going to happen.

It's funny. If you look back at any of RCB's interviews in the last week or so, you see signs of a team that believed this was their time. Their players signed off from New Chandigarh promising bigger celebrations on June 3. Kohli said that before the final he had told de Villiers that he wanted him to celebrate with them "when" they lifted the trophy at the end of the night.

And yet, when it does actually come around, you don't know what to do. As Kohli later said, he gave this team his youth, his prime, his everything, just for this moment. The team gave back. He came across players here who shaped his international career. Every year he dusted himself off and brought the same energy to the team. After the 2009 heartbreak, when he was just a kid. After 2016, when it seemed even more preordained than this year.

You can trick your mind into believing there is no power that can stop you from winning, but when you have had that kind of history, you can't visualise what you will do after winning. On top of that, there are four balls to go before you can let yourself go completely.

At the end of the second ball, Kohli covered his face, and then covered even his eyes. The fingers came back wet. He had to wipe them on the back of his trousers. He was fielding at deep midwicket, one of the hot zones in the death overs that needs your best fielders. The next ball flew away for a six into the leg side. You have never seen Kohli react slower. He just jogged towards the ball and let someone from the infield retrieve it.

RCB coach Andy Flower later acknowledged that those who believe in fate would have a story to tell because geopolitical tensions between India and Pakistan led to the suspension of IPL 2025 just when Royal Challengers' campaign was flagging with injuries to Rajat Patidar and Hazlewood, which gave both players time to recover. Their opponents in the final, PBKS, lost a key player because the delay disrupted his team's WTC final preparations.

Try talking about fate to Kohli. He kept moving in circles as boundaries came off the last three balls. He looked deep into the stands. When you are struggling to hold back tears, looking into the distance helps. The same stands that mourned with him on November 19 two years ago were celebrating with him. A lot of them had come from Bengaluru. Not just English- and Kannada- and Dakhni-speaking fans, but also Tamil- and Hindi speakers who have settled in Bengaluru. The metro rides from Ahmedabad to Motera were jampacked and suffocating, but they endured it with discipline and joy. Perhaps they believe in fate.

The crowd for Qualifier 2 - on a Sunday - was only about half of this. Most of them were in the No. 18 knockoffs. Flight tickets from Bengaluru to Ahmedabad had risen to close to Rs 40,000 one way (over US$460). They still came. As they have been coming for 18 years. Never dunking on their team even when they were ridiculed for the team's performance.

One ball later, Kohli used the blue towel and threw it over the rope. It didn't matter if the ball was wet now. Krunal Pandya began to celebrate after the fourth ball. He wouldn't know what Kohli was going through. This was Krunal's fourth title. His second Player of the Match in a final. He can't know the pain of waiting with the same side for 18 long years.

Kohli said there might have been moments of doubt in between, but he never seriously considered moving to any other franchise. He wanted to win his first IPL with RCB. Not many do, but he had found home at the first go. He gave his heart, soul, and now his experience to "Bangalore". This is where he went from wild child to lean, mean fighting machine to responsible statesman. At some point along the way, it became his forever home. No matter how much you trick yourself into believing you will win, when you are slowly winding down and retiring from one format after the other, surely there are times you wonder: what if you never win?

Before the last ball, Kohli threw away his cap as well. As the ball flew away for the final six, he sank to his knees with the grace of a Roger Federer icing one of his many Grand Slam wins when the opponent made an error. If there aren't any already, there will soon be split-screen edits showing both falling to their knees upon winning.

That it means enough to Kohli to bring him to tears is vindication of how important the IPL is and how utterly difficult winning it is. Kohli is someone who has won almost all there is to win in cricket. The IPL is still a young product. Not long ago, it started as a glorified holiday for overseas players. This tournament needed a buy-in from its big stars.

For 18 years, Kohli has given it his all, celebrating, anguishing, sledging, putting his reputation on the line beefing with kids, reinventing his game to triple the percentage of good-length balls he slogs. His tears of anguish, and now tears of joy, are perhaps the most glowing endorsement for the tournament.

Second only to the crowd. About three-fourths of the 92,000 people who turned up stayed back till the end of the bloated presentations that went on for nearly an hour and a half after the match ended. They all sounded like they had the night of their lives despite all the struggles of attending a match in India. People were on the phone telling their loved ones they were "right there" when "we" won. A lot of them were going to go straight to the airport or the train station because Ahmedabad just doesn't have enough hotels to accommodate everyone who comes to attend a match at the humongous stadium.

There were many chasing the team bus to the hotel. That RCB will get a much bigger celebration, most likely an open-top bus ride with the trophy, in Bengaluru is a matter of when more than if. By then, Kohli and the others will not be fumbling with their reactions. They will have slept like babies and woken up to confirm this is not just a dream. That they are the IPL champions.