‘I know where my game stands’ — Virat Kohli backs himself to rediscover his best

Virat Kohli, who has had underwhelming returns of late, opened up on his learnings in a rather challenging phase, and is confident of getting back to his fluent best.
 By CX Staff Writer Aug 24, 2022, 18:46 IST
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“My experiences are sacred to me.”

Virat Kohli, one of modern-day greats has endured an extended run of poor form in recent times. He scored at a fairly low strike-rate of 115.99 during the Royal Challengers Bangalore’s run to the IPL 2022 playoffs, registering six single-digit scores including three first-ball ducks.

On the England tour, he managed 11 and 20 in the Edgbaston Test, and 1 and 11 in T20Is and 16 and 17 in ODIs, before opting out of the white-ball tour of the West Indies.

It has been over 1,000 days since Kohli last scored an international hundred. He had experienced a slump in form quite early in his career - in the five-match Test series in England in 2014 - wherein he had aggregated 134 from 10 innings.

The 33-year-old though, stated that 2014 was a different phase, and spoke of his learnings through his career, and how those can be helpful in challenging times.

"What happened in England was a pattern, so something that I could work on and something that I had to kind of overcome,” Kohli said on Star Sports show 'Game Plan'

“Right now, as you rightly mentioned, there is nothing that you can point out saying that the problem is happening here. So, that for me, is actually an easier thing to process because I know that I'm batting well and at times, when I start feeling that rhythm back, then I know that I'm batting well. So, that for me is not an issue, which wasn't the case in England; I didn't feel like I was batting well at all. So, I had to work hard on one thing that could be exposed again and again which I overcame; right now this is not the case."

Kohli further said that being aware and confident of his game helps him process the difficult times in a better way.

"I know where my game stands and you cannot run this far in your international career without having the ability to counter situations and counter conditions and counter different kinds of bowling,” he said. “So, this for me, is an easier phase to process, but I don't want to put this phase behind me. I want to learn from it and I want to understand what are the core values that I have, as a sportsperson and as a human being. 

“As long as I'm ticking those boxes, I know there are ups and downs, and when I come out of this phase, I know how consistent I can be. My experiences are sacred to me. Whatever I have experienced in this phase or in the past, as well one thing that I can vouch for, is that I have never valued myself more as a person."

Kohli will next be in action during the Asia Cup 2022, where India begin their campaign against arch-rivals Pakistan in Dubai on Sunday, September 28.

 

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