He’s had, seemingly forever, the ramp shot. The cover-drive, off front foot or back. The off-drive, the bowler’s back-drive, the conventional on-drive and the extraordinary flick-drive – all wrists and a touch of bottom hand – that sends the ball soaring over wide long-on. Pulls of various varieties from anywhere between mid-wicket and fine-leg. Oh, and of course, the scything conventional sweep.

A complete stroke-maker, in effect, if you like. And yet, in the last couple of years, he has worked assiduously to bolster his repertoire, playing and practicing and eventually mastering, to the extent that it is possible, the slog-sweep, which has become one of his more productive boundary-fetching strokes in 20-over cricket against spin of all ilk.

Virat Kohli might have retired from international T20s, but the journey to keep reinventing himself hasn’t stopped. It won’t, one can rest assured, till he plays competitively, because such is the fire that consumes him, such is the pride in performance that he wears as a second skin.

For many years now, the former Indian captain has been in the race for the Orange Cap in the IPL, a race he has won twice. Unsurprisingly, he is on top of the list this time too, with 505 runs from 11 innings following his 33-ball 62 in Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s thrilling two-run conquest of Chennai Super Kings on Saturday night. What is notable is that compared to the past, when his strike-rate hovered between 105 and 122 in nine of the first 16 seasons, he has been striking at 143.47 in 2025, which still is more than ten runs behind the 154.70 he boasted in 2024, when he finished as the league’s leading scorer with 741 runs.

Like Kohli, his current Test and One-Day International skipper too doesn’t play the 20-over format at the country vs country level. Having seen his predecessor assume the lead role in India’s seven-run win over South Africa in the final of the T20 World Cup last June, Rohit Sharma too called time on a career most glorious in its immediacy. When he bid adieu ten months back, he had more T20I sixes (205) than anyone else. The Mumbaikar is a consummate clearer of the leg-side boundary, with his trademark pick-up strokes and pulls of ferocious intensity that his hands, feet and eyes enable him to play effortlessly off the front foot too against the fastest of bowlers.

Yet, on Thursday, as he celebrated his 38th birthday a day later with his third half-century in four outings for Mumbai Indians, his 36-ball 53 didn’t include a single pull or hook. There was a marked focus on playing, and scoring, through the off-side, which is traditionally regarded as the lesser of his two productive areas. The world’s most prolific six-hitter put that facet away, focusing on the fours even as he scored comfortably in excess of 145 runs per hundred balls faced.

What’s it they say about old being gold?

Rohit and Kohli are in the process of winding down illustrious careers, they have nothing left to prove to anyone, except perhaps to themselves – to prove that the passage of time has dimmed neither their prowess nor their pursuit of excellence. To prove that while young lads comfortably half their age might smack 35-ball centuries, it’s foolhardy to talk of this pair as spent forces, as have-beens.

They are doing it in their own different ways – Kohli with his heart on his sleeve, characteristically, and Rohit in that stately, understated, unfussed way that has been his calling card for so many summers now. The 36-year-old from Delhi will punch the air or smack his bat when he uncorks a deliberate edge-steer to third-man with the fielder in the ring, or when he slog-sweeps with impunity. Rohit will look at a dreamy punch in front of point with a slight narrowing of his eyes, a mental shrug of his shoulders, an apologetic punch of gloves with his partner. Fire, and ice. They still got it, these two virtuosos.

There is a reason why RCB and MI are headlining the race for the playoffs. True, RCB have a more versatile and rounded look to them for perhaps the first time ever, but without the engine room that Kohli is, they would have been short on inspiration. It’s no coincidence that MI’s resurgence after a typically abysmal start has come about when Rohit has rediscovered his mojo, with back-to-back IPL half-centuries for the first time since 2016 and three fifties in a season for the first time since 2020.

The Suryavanshis and the Mhatres and the Aryas might be the flavour of the season but these two with a combined age of 74? What’s it they say about old being gold?

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