Ahead of IPL 2022, Virat Kohli mentions the one aspect of his Cricket journey that the audience from the outside have no clue about.
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Former India captain Virat Kohli has been dominating the headlines ever since he decided to relinquish his captaincy post of the IPL franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) post the end of the 14th season of the league. Having taken the responsibility for as many as eight years, starting the 2013 season, the 33-year-old took the vital call without a title to boast of.
The decision was followed by his relinquishment from team India’s T20I captaincy as well, which further led to him being sacked as the ODI skipper by the BCCI. If this was not it, the country’s most decorated captain also stepped down as the team’s Test leader as well, post the 1-2 Test series loss against South Africa.
Adding on to the aforementioned tumultuous challenges he has been facing off-late, the arduous wait for the elusive 71st International Century by his fans have only further increased the weight of expectations he has been carrying all these years.
During a candid interaction for ‘The RCB podcast’ ahead of IPL 2022, the star India batter opened up on his struggles when going through a lean patch, and how he picks himself up when the clouds of self-doubt hover above his head.
He also spoke in brief, about that one aspect of his journey as a Cricketer that remains unseen by the fans and audiences.
Virat Kohli mentions the one aspect of his Cricket journey
When asked during the podcast as to what it is that the audience does not see about his Cricket journey, Virat Kohli exclaimed, “It’s the moments when you are sitting in your room with absolute zero confidence, with zero conviction that you can perform the next day, and what it takes to overcome that”.
“I can show you training videos, I can show you what I do on a monthly basis; and yes, you can take inspiration and all that but it is very difficult for anyone to know what it takes for you to play under the kind of pressure you have to play in, keep up with those performances, make sure that you are committing yourself 200% to make your team win, and when things are not going right how you manage all those expectations from yourself, not from people. So that, I think is the most challenging part of being at a top level for 15-20 years.
“It’s a very delicate thing to do. When you know you are not doing well and you feel like you don’t wanna work, you don’t wanna go practice, or don’t wanna go to the gym. It eats you up from the inside because that’s not who you are, and your mind is dominating you, and it’s making you feel like you are not good enough.
“So your one foot is in doubt, and the other foot is in this empty space in between. But, you know that this true nature of yours, which is ‘fearless’, ‘believe in yourself’, ‘instinctively work for yourself’ is on the other side. And, you go for it because as an individual you feel like you are respecting all the phases of your life, and even in your worse times you are committed to do the hard work and it’s not based on success. That for me is the real game,” Kohli further completed.
RCB have retained Kohli as one of the three players at INR 15 Crore for the upcoming 15th season of the IPL. The franchise, however, will have to appoint a new captain for the team.
