Ahead of the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL 2023), Virat Kohli recalled the time when he was at the final stage of his captaincy tenure with the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the IPL.
Notably, Kohli captained RCB from 2013 to 2021 before South Africa star Faf du Plessis took charge in the last season. The dashing right-hander has been part of the RCB since the first-ever season of the IPL, and he was given the captaincy by Daniel Vettori in 2013.
Virat Kohli was quoted as saying in RCB Bold Diaries: “When my captaincy tenure was coming to an end, I was left with no belief, to be very honest. I was gone. The tank was absolutely empty. But that was my own perspective. That was just me as an individual saying that ‘I have seen so much of this, I just can’t manage it, I just can’t handle it anymore’.”
The former skipper continued, “But the next season, new people came in, they had new ideas, there was another opportunity. They were excited. Maybe as an individual, I wasn’t that excited, but they created the energy and we reached the playoffs three years in a row. And now we start every season with the excitement that there was before. I feel excited now.”
Meanwhile, Kohli also recalled the IPL 2019 where RCB suffered six losses in a row, and they finished at the bottom of the points table. He said, “In 2019, we lost 6 matches in a row. I clearly remember after we lost the sixth game, we had a get-together in the evening. I walked in, I was the captain. I was completely gone. I couldn’t feel anything.”
Kohli signed off by saying, “I didn’t recognise myself and I was like I had no belief left whatsoever. When I walked into the post-match get together, the first person I saw was AB. He walked to me and we stood face to face and we were doing is like we had never lost six games in a row in our lives and we played 15 years of international cricket almost together.”
Here is the video:
