During an interaction with Danish Sait in the RCB Podcast a couple of days ago, former team India skipper Virat Kohli had remarked how people have this tendency to focus on the things which do not go right in one’s career, as it is a great way to keep the conversations going.
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Kohli had already signaled the world that he did belong at the highest level after playing special knocks at Perth and Adelaide during team India’s disastrous tour of Australia in 2011/12, post which he had performed on a consistent basis, until the England tour took place in 2014.
He managed to score mere 134 runs across the 10 innings of the five-match Test series, at a poor average of 13.40. Discussions and debates with regard to his technique in seaming conditions continued unabated for some good 3-4 years, be it even as an asterisk, despite him having played some memorable knocks for the team across formats post that period.
Once in a flight from Kochi to Delhi in the year 2014, Kohli had encountered with one such Indian Cricket fan who would not only express his displeasure over the former for going through a rough patch, but even demanded a century the next match he played for India.
A fan questioned Virat Kohli for lack of runs amid Kochi-Delhi flight
An MS Dhoni fan from the corporate sector had been on the same flight (from Kochi to Delhi) in which the Indian team was travelling in order to partake in the second ODI of West Indies tour to India. Kohli, who had a forgetful tour of England, had gotten out for 2 (5) during the first ODI against the West Indies in Kochi.
The fan, who had quite opened up after having interacted with Dhoni earlier, turned towards Kohli and amazingly demanded a century from him in the next ODI. A young Kohli had decided to not let him off so easily, and began to strike a conversation with him.
“I was like okay, let’s have a conversation. I asked him ‘Where do you work?’. He mentioned some company. Then I asked him ‘What’s your position in the company?’, and he mentioned some kind of a manager, I don’t understand the terms but yeah, in a good position. So, I said, ‘Okay, in three months time, I want you to become the chairman of your company.’ So, he said, ‘How is that possible?’. That’s when I made him understand the analogy that what I do is not video game,” Kohli remarked in the RCB podcast.
Kohli later stated how the fan eventually understood everything he had to say, and how the entire team them started exclaiming “Coach, coach, coach”, after he had just ‘coached’ the fan.
Kohli does score a hundred, although a match later
Kohli scored a half-century (62 off 78) during the next ODI in Delhi, and followed it up by hitting his 20th century in the format, during the fourth ODI in Dharamsala. The third ODI at Vizag had to be cancelled due to a cyclone which had affected the city.
Thus, the fan from the corporate sector did actually get what he had wanted from Kohli, although an innings later.
The aforementioned five-match home ODI series against the Windies had preceded with an away ODI series against England, which had taken place immediately after the Test series.
Kohli had returned from England with scores of 0, 40, 1*, and 13 in the ODI series, after averaging 13.40 during the Tests.
