Virat Kohli is widely regarded as one of the greatest batters in modern-day cricket. In particular, the Indian stalwart has been dominant while batting at No. 3 spot. Out of the 27,599 runs he's scored in international cricket, 15,303 of them have come when playing at one down position.
In an interview with Mayanti Langer, Kohli explained how MS Dhoni and Gary Kirsten played a key role in pushing him to that spot and their thought process behind it.
"I was very realistic about my abilities. Because I had seen a lot of other people play. And I did not feel like my game was anywhere close to theirs. The only thing that I had was the determination. And if I wanted to make my team win, I was willing to do anything,” Kohli said.
"That was the very reason I got chances to play for India initially. And Gary (Kirsten) and MS (Dhoni) made it very clear to me that we are backing you to play at number 3. And this is what you can do for the team. And what you represent on the field, your energy, your engagement, that is of the biggest value to us. So we want you to play that way.
"So I was never looked at as this outright match winner who can change the game from anywhere. But I had this thing of, 'I'm going to stay in the fight'. I'm not going to give up,” he added.
"And that is what they backed. So that very thing that God blessed me with, that helped me to improve my game, my technique, everything. And I've never been shy to admit that I was not the most technically sound and naturally gifted player.
"I evolved a lot while I was playing because I was very keen to learn and I was very keen to get better. And I wanted to be the best. There is no denying that I wanted to be the best. And that hunger, that desire to keep improving, eventually to win more games for your team is what helped me improve my game," Kohli continued.
Kohli has been associated with Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) ever since the inception of IPL in 2008. The 36-year-old revealed that he considered leaving the franchise but changed his mind.
"There are couple of others, they might not have been that big names," said Kohli when asked to put himself in the list of global sporting icons such as Michael Jordan, Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Tom Brady.
"Steven Gerrard was one. Francesco Totti was one. He stayed at Roma through his whole career. I've mentioned this before. I had the opportunity to explore, to look elsewhere, especially in the very prime peak years of my career from 2016 to 2019, I had constant suggestions and what not, to switch.
"At one point, it did become really tough for me because there was just too much happening in my career. I was captaining India for a period of 7-8 years. I was captaining RCB for nine years.
"There were expectations on me from a batting perspective. Every game that I played. I didn't have this sense that the attention is off me. If it wasn't captaincy, it was batting. If it wasn't batting, it was captaincy. I was always in this space where I was like, what do I do? I was exposed to it 24/7. It did get very tough on me and it did get too much in the end. That's why I stepped down,” he remarked.
Virat Kohli captained RCB in 143 games with a win percentage of 46.15. The closest he came to the IPL trophy as captain was in the 2016 edition where he scored a record-breaking 973 runs, including four centuries.
