It has been around six months since Virat Kohli rediscovered his batting mojo and returned among runs. He hit back to normalcy with his first-ever T20I hundred, against Afghanistan in Asia Cup, and smashed a couple of hundreds against Sri Lanka last month. He even went past former Australian captain Ricky Ponting in terms of most international hundreds and is only behind legendary Sachin Tendulkar who has 100 tons in international cricket.
Kohli seems to be in a great space of mind as of now, but prior to September 2022, he went through a horrific phase in his cricketing career leading to questions about his place in the team. He couldn’t get a century since November 2019 and was struggling to score runs across formats. He finally decided to take a month-long break from cricket and spend some good time with his family.
It turned out to be a magical move for the former Indian captain as he had a great run in Asia Cup and in the T20 World Cup 2023 as well.
Kohli recently featured in the latest season of the RCB Podcast where he spoke about the rough patch he went through. He revealed that apart from his wife, actress Anushka Sharma, and family members, it was former Indian captain MS Dhoni who ‘genuinely’ reached out to him.
“What is interesting is that throughout this phase apart from Anushka, who has been the biggest source of strength for me because she has been with me throughout this whole time and she has seen me very closely as how have I felt, things that I have gone through, the kind of things that have happened…the only person who, apart from my childhood coach and family…genuinely reached out to me has been MS Dhoni,” Kohli said in the show.
“He reached out to me and you can rarely get in touch with him. If I call him on any random day, 99 percent 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?’
Kohli shared the dressing room with Dhoni for 11 years during their stint with Team India between 2008 and 2019.
“So, it (Dhoni’s words) hit home for me because I have always been looked at as someone who is very confident, mentally very strong, who can endure any circumstances and find a way and show us the way. Sometimes, what you realise is that at any given point of time in life as a human being you need to take a couple of steps backwards, understand how you are doing, how your wellbeing is placed.
“So, there are not many places, for the people who have played the game for a long period, as strong individuals, they can go and explain in a way that the other person can understand. That’s why I mentioned this particular incident because MS Dhoni knows exactly what is going on, he understands it because he has been there himself,” he added.
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