The change in Virat Kohli’s persona – from being a chubby young boy to becoming an exponent of fitness – has been witnessed by all of us. In the initial playing days, he sparked controversy in Australia by flipping the crowd. He was highly criticised for his act back then but over the years, his dedication and passion for the game made him one of the outstanding players in the modern era; a veteran of 100 Test matches.
Kohli has established himself as an inspiration for the coming generation, especially his transformation journey that help him navigating newer heights. Back in 2012, he decided to change his lifestyle and became one of the fittest players around. But prior to that change, he was fond of eating.
His under-19 teammate Pradeep Sangwan went down the memory lane and recalled an incident from their South Africa tour when they decided to have mutton rolls at an insecure neighbourhood.
“He had been my room partner for seven-eight years in junior cricket. He used to love food, street food especially. He was a foodie, korma rolls, chicken rolls were his favourite. We were in South Africa with the India under 19 team, and someone told him that you get nice mutton roll at some place, but it’s not in a secure neighbourhood,” Sangwan wrote in his column for The Indian Express.
“Our driver too told us that food is nice but recently some fight took place around there and someone chopped someone’s hand there. I got scared, but he said, ‘chal yaar, wahan challenge’ (no biggie, dude, let’s go) and he took me there too. We ate and few random guys chased us, but we just drove our car back and only stopped after reaching our place.”
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Sangwan further remembered the time when Kohli’s career began to flourish. In 2012, the former India batter decided to introduce change to his routine in terms of his eating habit.
“After playing for India, he came to play for us in 2012 and this was the time he went to another level in terms of his diet. We used to call him cheeku-motu in the team. But in 2012 he came with a plan where he began look after his fitness. He began to follow a strict diet. He was determined to lose his weight, and wanted to shed few kilos. He wanted to be a good fielder, he was a safe fielder then too but in terms of reflexes, he felt he was not upto the mark. He wanted to be the best fielder. He liked to bat for hours in the nets and then he would go do some more knocking,” mentioned Sangwan.
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