Last Updated: April 19, 2023, 10:20 AM IST
Virat Kohli is currently representing RCB in IPL 2023. (AP Photo)
Virat Kohli went through a testing phase in his cricket career that affected him mentally and he ended up taking a break from the sport
India batting star Virat Kohli has been quite vocal about the struggles he went through during a lean phase of his storied career before the turnaround at the Asia Cup last year. Kohli took a break from the sport, a period that saw him not lifting a cricket bat for a month as he rediscovered his love for the game.
Kohli went through a century drought, across formats, that lasted nearly three years. At the 2022 Asia Cup, he ended the long wait with a maiden T20I century before subsequently hitting tons in an ODI later that year and then a Test hundred earlier in 2023.
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In a conversation with Robin Uthappa on JioCinema, Kohli recalled how his wife Anushka Sharma kept him grounded and helped him handle public pressure.
“When you go back from a space like this. It’s easy immediately to go like ‘ah, everything is so good and it’s okay’. That’s why I say Anushka’s name first because she has seen the challenges of being in this position. She knows it. She has been there for so many years. She knows what it takes to handle public pressure. So, her conversations with me has always been priceless. She tells me the truth, simple,” Kohli said.
Kohli admits that had it not been for Anushka, he would have gone into a different zone, becoming an ‘egoistic maniac’.
“There is no mollycoddling. Because no one else is (real). there are always so many layers. She is like, my responsibility is to tell you the truth. So, how she spoke to during that phase was something that kept me in check. If I was left by myself just to figure it out, I would have become egoistic maniac. I would have become snappier, even more cranky but for her to keep bringing me down to the base level where two people should be at the same level, to be normal, to grow together,” he said.
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Kohli also touched upon the impact his daughter has had on his outlook.
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“Then when you have a child, the thing that you learn while having a child is to be present. And I was never present. She (Vamika) does everything in the moment, being happy looking at a carrot,” he said.
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