BENGALURU: Around the time Virat Kohli retained his place in India's ODI squad for the Afghanistan series, the man himself was taking a small gathering through the ups and downs of his life. The 37-year-old, who will quit from all forms of the game once he loses the love and the feeling, doesn't do much public speaking.
It's why events like Tuesday are so important to understand the current mental make-up of one of the greatest sportspersons the country has seen. At the third edition of the RCB Innovation Lab Indian Sports Summit, the former India captain married honesty with some advice for upcoming cricketers.
During the almost 70-minute fireside chat with Mayanti Langer, a few things became evident. Even though some of Kohli's contemporaries have started YouTube channels or become pundits or coaches, he said he will leave the game for good once he retires as a player.
"I for one," he said to an audience spanning delegates, scribes, sponsors as well as stakeholders, "am not in a space where I want to have more things connected to cricket beyond my playing days. I don't want to be dependent on cricket all my life. Because there's so much more to understand.
"This (cricket) should not be the only limiting factor, at least in my experience. Let's see what happens in a few years' time and where life takes me."
He also had advice for some of the younger cricketers starting their 'life', especially the ones who go on 'podcasts' and hype themselves up.
"Like I'm not… I honestly feel quite sad for players when they end up going to podcasts and they end up talking about what they think and how they feel," he said. "Because they haven't been in the journey for long enough and then they come to play in competitions where the focus is on them and suddenly they find themselves under tremendous pressure because now you've said something that you have to live up to." While he didn't namecheck any cricketer, he warned that this could be 'dangerous' in 'today's media world'.
The Indian Premier League (IPL) has brought with it a lot of opportunities for a lot of players. But it has also meant instant gratification coupled with windfall at a young age. But as far as the RCB opener is concerned, the true hallmark of a player's career is longevity across formats. “A lot of people relate drive to money nowadays," he said. "For me, it's not the only factor. When a format that gives you the hype, recognition, and fame by scoring 40 or 50 runs in 20 balls, and the kind of money that people can make in the IPL today, it can put you in a very comfortable space. It can make you say ‘This is brilliant. I don't need to handle pressure for too long. I can just go out there and smash the ball'.
“Or, you can say, I want to play for 15-20 years. I want to get the recognition and respect of the cricketing world, of my own heroes. That's a very different zone. You have to be very driven to say, ‘I'm going to commit to this for the next 10-15 years. It is going to be very, very hard but I'm up for it’."
He should know. He committed himself wholeheartedly to the slog and only realised he was 'spent' when he gave up the captaincy. "I ended up being in a place where I became the focal point of our batting unit," he reflected. "Then, I became the focal point of the leadership. I didn't realise how much load both those things will present in my daily life. Because I was so driven and motivated, I didn't pay attention. That's precisely why by the time I left captaincy, I was completely spent. There was nothing left in the tank to give. I was completely consumed by it."
Since then, he has given up all red-ball cricket as well international T20s. Over the next 16-18 months, though, he will continue to play franchise cricket for RCB as well as other white-ball cricket for state and country. And as long as there is fire in the belly — and there is — he will give himself the best chance of making the squad for the 2027 World Cup.
