Wanted to wear helmet when I kept wickets to Umesh Yadav’s bowling, reveals Virat Kohli

Aside from scoring over 20,000 international runs and establishing his name as the most successful Indian Test captain of all time, incumbent Indian skipper Virat Kohli has also kept wickets for the national team in ODI cricket - a fact that is not well renowned. In the ODI series against Bangladesh in 2015, at Dhaka, Kohli donned the keeper’s gloves for an over and deputized for MS Dhoni behind the stumps when the latter had to leave the field to relieve himself. Kohli’s ‘wicket-keeping’ lasted all of just one over, but it was an incident which, then, went viral on social media platforms, with fans celebrating him as the game’s ultimate all-rounder.

Recollecting the incident in a chat with Mayank Agarwal, Kohli revealed that given it was Umesh Yadav who was bowling, he so desperately wanted to wear a helmet, but chose not to due to the fear of embarrassment. Kohli revealed that he was scared that he’d get hit by the ball and break his jaw. 

“What wasn’t fun was that I took the gloves in the 43rd over and Umesh was bowling gas. The ball had gotten old and it was under lights, I was finding it very tough to pick the ball. I thought it’d hit me on the jaw. I wanted to wear a helmet and stand behind but it would have been embarrassing,” Kohli said on ‘Open nets with Mayank’. 

“People would have made fun of me that this guy is even wearing a helmet while keeping to a fast bowler. So I had to really, really focus at that moment. It was funny but it was nice at the same time to do something different.”

The 31-year-old further went on to reveal that it was Dhoni who had requested him to keep wickets and admitted that only after donning the gloves he realized the enormity of the task the veteran had on his hands, given the Jharkhand man was, back in the day, both the wicket-keeper and the captain. The Delhite, however, described the experience of keeping wickets as 'fun'.

“Ask Mahi bhai about how this happened. He just said, ‘Please keep wickets for two-three overs,’ and that is how it happened. I was keeping wickets and adjusting the field, then I understood that he has a lot on his plate when he is on the field. Because he has to focus every ball on keeping and adjusting the field and everything as well. So it was fun.”