Wanted some space and to manage my workload- Virat Kohli on quitting RCB captaincy post IPL 2021

Kohli became RCB captain in 2013 and quit the position in 2021.

Virat Kohli had shocked quite a few Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and IPL fans when he announced that the IPL 2021 edition would be the last for him as captain of the side. Now he has revealed the reasons behind quitting as RCB captain.

Kohli had announced his decision to leave IPL captaincy after saying that T20 World Cup will be his last tournament as India skipper in the shortest format. He was later removed as ODI captain before he quit the leadership role in Test format as well.  

Kohli, during a talk on the RCB Podcast, recalled his decision to quit the RCB captaincy in IPL 2021 and shared the reasons and sentiment behind taking such a huge decision. Kohli had become the RCB captain in IPL 2013, taking over from Daniel Vettori.

He remains the only cricketer to have played for a single IPL franchise since making his debut in the league in 2008 as a 19-year-old.

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“I’m not someone who holds onto things more than I should. Even if I know I can do a lot more, if I’m not going to enjoy the process, I’m not going to do it. Because it’s very difficult for people to understand your decisions unless they are in your situation. From the outside, people have their own expectations Oh! How did that happen? We are so shocked,” Kohli said on the podcast.

“There’s nothing to be shocked about. I explain to people, I wanted some space and I wanted to manage my workload and the story ends there,” he added.

Despite their best efforts, and reaching the final of the tournament thrice in 2009, 2011, and 2016, RCB is yet to win the tournament. Virat Kohli had led the team to the final in IPL 2016, where they lost to Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), who won their maiden IPL title.

Rubbishing all the conversations that people had about his decision, Kohli cleared the air.

He said: “There was actually nothing at all. I keep my life very simple and basic, when I wanted to make a decision, I made a decision and I announced it. I didn’t want to think about it and contemplate it for another year. That would’ve done nothing to me, nothing to the environment I’m part of. Quality of life is something very important to me. And the quality of cricket is something very important to me.

Over a period of time, you want to do what you’re doing day-in-and-day-out and you want to do as much as you can, but at the end of the day, you have to realize that quality is far more important than quantity.”

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The elegant top-order batter also stressed that he has always been himself.

“Quantity in hard work but quality in execution. That is the key. If you go for quantity in execution, then you’re going to get burnt out. If I can’t be myself in my everyday life and I can’t be myself on the field, I will change something.

Because that is who I am. That is the reason I am where I am. And that is the reason why people can connect to me at a certain level. My loved ones, people who are close to me, my friends they connected to me because of that factor, because I’ve always been myself,” he signed off.

Virat Kohli was retained by the RCB franchise along with Glenn Maxwell and Mohammed Siraj ahead of the IPL 2022 auction.

(PTI inputs)