Ace batsman Virat Kohli, who stepped down as Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) captain after the 2021 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), revealed that he had lost “belief” and his “tank was absolutely empty” during his tenure. .
“At the time when my captaincy tenure was coming to an end here, I had no confidence to be very honest. I was gone, the tank was absolutely empty,” Kohli said while interacting with the RCB women’s team ahead of their match against UP Warriors in the Women’s Premier League (WPL) on Wednesday.
The video was tweeted by RCB from its official handle. Watch the video here:
Kohli said, “But that was my own perspective, that was me just one person saying I’ve seen too much of it, I can’t handle it anymore, I can handle it.”
RCB had a dreadful time in 2019 as they lost six matches in a row and finished last. They had been at the bottom two years before this as well.
That edition of IPL saw him dismissed for 49 against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), the team’s lowest score in IPL history.
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The team’s best performance under Kohli came in 2016 when they missed out on the trophy by losing the final against Sunrisers Hyderabad by just eight runs. Kohli led from the front in the 2016 edition with able support from AB de Villiers and emerged as the highest run-getter in that edition with 973 runs including four hundreds and seven fifties.
After this, RCB again reached the IPL playoffs in 2020 and reached the knockouts in 2021 and 2022 as well.
“… new guys came in, they had new ideas, another opportunity. They were excited, maybe as a person, I wasn’t as excited. But they generated energy and we got to the playoffs three years in a row. ” Kohli said.
“Now we start every season with the same enthusiasm that was there before and I feel excited now, the guy who was not up to the mark. So it is a collective responsibility, if anyone is feeling down, others can pull him up.”
Kohli has been replaced by South Africa’s Faf du Plessis on the RCB captain’s saddle, and his decision to step down as India’s T20I captain in 2021 followed a poor show in the World T20. He was later dropped as an ODI. The captain of Team India and after that also left the Test captaincy.
The 34-year-old batsman indicated that at times he was gripped by insecurities and tried his best to save his reputation.
“… I need constant reminders from the youth as well, because they have a fresh perspective. I am under pressure because I have played for so long, I have been insecure, I have tried my performance, my reputation ‘Oh, I am Virat Kohli, I have to perform in every game. I can’t afford to walk out’.
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“But these young guys come up and say to me, ‘Why didn’t you hit the ball?’ And I was like, ‘She’s right.’ I couldn’t think about it because I was so into myself, me, me and what I should be doing and how people are looking at me and all that stuff that I forgot I am so confused about how to play the game,” Kohli said.
Kohli is fresh off a brilliant 186 in the fourth and final Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against Australia earlier this month. A century in Ahmedabad ended the three-year wait for a Test ton.
Kohli’s pep talk worked wonders for the RCB women’s team as they registered their first win in six matches, beating UP Warriors by five wickets on Wednesday. Player of the match Kanika Ahuja, who played a crucial role in the win scoring 46, gave all the credit to Kohli’s motivational speech for the team’s success.
With PTI inputs.
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