Virat Kohli has successfully came to his vintage image. The image has not been restored in the international cricket, but also in the ongoing IPL. “The King” of the modern day cricket has seen a lot through the period of 2020 to the late 2022. While his bat failed to speak, the criticisms coming from all the corners put down all his achievements he gathered till then. That unendurable period Virat Kohli wen through for the past two and a half years- he reminisces his experiences in a recent RCB podcast. On Monday, in a recent interviewon Jio Cinema, apart from sharing the experiences, Virat Kohli mentioned the support he got from Robin Uthappa as well other than the former Indian captain MS Dhoni.
The struggling Virat Kohli heard many stalwarts chirping about the dos and the donts that the former can follow. Not only that, they never thought twice to step ahead assuming the end of “Virat-era.” However Virat Kohli repeatedly took MS Dhoni’s name. Kohli mentioning the support Dhoni extended in that lean phase. But on Monday, Virat Kohli added another name in that list, and that’s none other but the veteran Robin Uthappa.
Kohli’s off form saga came to an end with his 71st ton
The phase that time was dark- a century was in no show from his bat. The sixties or the seventies he was scoring, even though were beneficiary to his team. But those weren’t steady enough to touch the hundred runs’ mark. Moreover, India suffered a poor as well as early exit from the ICC World Cup under his captaincy. India also underwent frustrating defeat in the World Test Championship against the Kiwis. This got followed by him giving up his captaincy from Test and T20s, and also from RCB. He later got dethroned from the ODI by Saurav Ganguly led BCCI.
Well everything has an ending line. Even the Asia Cup campaign failed, but India’s match against Afghanistan was the real one. It put the ultimate full stop of Virat Kohli’a off saga. There came his first T-20 ton, and also the most awaited 71st tone under his name.
Virat Kohli says Robin Uthappa sensed something wrong with his body language, and checked in, ‘Are you okay?’
Kohli while speaking to the RCB podcast mentioned that, it was not once, but twice that MS Dhoni reached out while the former was struggling.
Kohli told,
“The only person who, apart from my childhood coach and family, genuinely reached out to me has been MS Dhoni. He (Dhoni) reached out to me and you can rarely get in touch with him. If I call him on any random day, 99 per cent he will not pick up (the phone), because he just does not look at the phone. So, for him to reach out to me, twice it has happened now, and one of the things that he’d mentioned in the message while reaching out to me was that: ‘when you are expected to be strong and looked at as a strong individual, people forget to ask how are you doing?’
On Monday, Virat Kohli, gave an interview on Jio Cinema, with Robin Uthappa, the veteran India cricketer. There, Kohli said that the later was also kept touch with him during the struggling phase.
While speaking about Robin Uthappa, Virat Kohli said,
“Because I was not in a space where I was comfortable with myself, I was looking for all kinds of excuses that it must be happening because of this and that or technical changes. But you were in touch with me at that point of time and I beyond a point I figured out people cannot feel what I am feeling. You sensed something with my body language and asked ‘Are you okay? Just wanted to check in on you.’ That happened very rarely.”
“Everyone was like we observe this and this is the solution for it,” Kohli
Virat Kohli also added that Robin Uthappa was significant with his actions amidst countless people with suggestions for him.
“Everyone was like we observe this and this is the solution for it. I couldn’t get the point across that whatever shortcoming is there is because of this (pointing towards his head).
“When you are not right mentally, you are all over the place. There were no technical issues because I have done this for 15 years. It can’t be that all went to a standstill and the technical issues pop out right now. When I came back fresh and started hitting the ball again and people were like ‘oh you made some serious changes’. But I didn’t pick up the bat for six weeks.”
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