When I was down and out in 2014, hardly anyone came to help me, recalls Virat Kohli
Indian skipper Virat Kohli has revealed that after the 2014 tour of England, he realized that when you are going through the tough times, hardly anyone comes to bail you out. He added that in 2014, he had hit the rock bottom, and no one trusted him to play Test cricket any longer.
Virat Kohli has been a gun player for India ever since he made his international debut. He was a quick starter and pretty quickly sealed his spot in the limited-overs outfit. But, the right-hander had a tough start to his Test career, but then came to the 2011 Australia tour, where he got to his maiden Test century in Adelaide and from there on, kept on scoring consistently across formats.
But the 2014 England tour was a major reality check for the Delhi batsman as he failed terribly and was outfoxed by the English pacers on the off-stump line. The 2014 series was arguably the biggest low of Kohli's career and his confidence took a major beating. Reflecting on that time, the 32 years old stated that he realized when things aren't going your way, not many people come out and support you wholeheartedly.
"There I realised that once you are down and out, there was hardly anyone who came to help me, there was hardly anyone who was looking towards me and saying listen let’s work together and you know try to get your game up to speed, everyone was just going after me left, right and centre. So, I was like I am playing to prove these people long, for what, I have got nothing to do with them, they literally have nothing to contribute in my life," Kohli told Dinesh Karthik in an interaction on Sky Sports, reported HT.
He further added that it was a time when he felt that no one wanted to see him play Test cricket for India, but he just tried to work hard to get back to his best.
"So, I went back home, I was down for quite a bit, the great thing that happened at that stage was, I realised who is with me, who’s not, things were filtered to an extent that I just got so relaxed when I went back home, I was like okay. I have hit a rock bottom now, no one believes in me, everyone thinks I should not be playing Test cricket, so what can I do, I can just work hard as I can," Kohli elaborated.
Kohli, who is one of the most consistent batters in world cricket across formats, also revealed that before the 2014/15 tour of Australia, he was treating every away tour like an acid test for himself.
"To be honest before that Australia tour, I was treating every foreign tour like, more like an engineering exam, that I have to pass somehow and I have to show people that I can play at this level."
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