Virat Kohli was the only player to be retained by RCB ahead of the IPL 2011.
Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) had retained only one player, Virat Kohli ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2011). They had let go the likes of Anil Kumble and Rahul Dravid ahead of the auction.
Kohli opened up on the IPL 2011 retention in a series titled ‘RCB Podcast’. He had put a condition on being retained by RCB, who wanted to build a new squad around him.
"I felt great; I did not shy away from it. I remember we were playing the Champions League in South Africa and Ray Jennings and Siddharth Mallya approached me, said that they were looking to retain only me and that they were looking to build a whole new squad around me," he said.
The 33-year-old revealed that he told them about his desire to bat at number three, and the franchise accepted it. "I said that's great, and that's the opportunity I am looking for. I told them very clearly there's only one condition that I will bat at No.3 and nowhere else.
"They said fair enough. I knew I can do something special for the team. I had no problem accepting the responsibility," he said.
Kohli has been part of the RCB franchise since the inaugural season, but he couldn't bat at his desired position due to experienced batters in the batting order like Dravid, Jacques Kallis, and Ross Taylor.
"The first three years in the IPL, I always had the belief that I could do something special. I felt like the composition of the team, while they were amazing players, and rightly so in the right positions, I was not able to play in the position that was my strength," said Kohli.
"For the first 3 years, it was on and off, a performance here and a performance there. It was not as free-flowing and consistent as I would have liked it to be. I was playing No.3 for India, and I was not getting to do it for RCB in the IPL. It was a bit of a strange situation for me because I felt like I could replicate my India performances here and maybe better."
Bangalore had reached the final of the IPL 2011, and Kohli had scored 557 runs in 16 innings of the tournament with four half-centuries.
(With RCB Podcast Inputs)