Why Virat Kohli's decision to return mid-series to be with his wife was the right one

 The much-publicised conversation around Virat Kohli, the Indian captain who has decided to return mid-series from Australia to be with this wife for the birth of their first child. He applied for paternity leave to the BCCI and they obliged, he will be participating in the first test match of the series but will return home after that game and miss the remaining 3 matches. 

           Now Kohli is just not any other normal cricketer, he is kind of the global brand ambassador of the sport in some way. He has been the most dominant player in the last decade or so, while his off-field brand persona carries a vibe which is unmatched across the sport. Being such a big celebrity brings its own pressure and scrutiny from all corners, because of which all your decisions on and off the field are looked through a magnifying glass. That is why when he made this decision, the cricketing world seems to be divided. Kohli is sought of living the perfect dream, he is got the game, the charisma and anything he touches of the field seems to turn into gold. Deep down in our hearts, this is the dream of majority of the middle-class Indian boys. The fact of the matter is that he has reached that stage with his own decisions and he has the right to make them throughout his career, especially personal decisions which the public should have no business interfering in. 

            A few pointers, this is his 4th tour to Australia and he has already won a test series down under in 2018. He has smashed hundred in different corners of Australia and he has nothing to prove to anyone. If we are reliant on one player to win us the series, then we have bigger problems then earlier imagined. For far too long the birth of a child has been looked upon as exclusively being up to the mother and the father is often not there during that time. In the past, players like Gavaskar and Border didn't even know for a while that they had become fathers until their matches were over but these are different times. We don't know what kind of a relationship Virat and Anushka have on the inside, so it is very important that we respect their decision and wish them all the best for this very beautiful and important chapter of their life. It is high time that paternity leave was normalised, it's there for a reason and nobody should be judged for it. At the end of the day, it's not just about the lady being a mother but also the man being a father.