Ryan ten Doeschate, a former assistant coach for India, has offered a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at how he interacted with Virat Kohli during the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test series in Australia.

Kohli scored 190 runs across five Tests, but after making a century in the opening Test in Perth, he failed to get past 36 runs. Throughout that Test series, Kohli went through an extended lean spell, time and again getting out in the same manner while driving outside off stump.

With fans, pundits, and former cricketers wondering whether the coaching staff was actively tackling the technical issue, Ten Doeschate explained the careful planning needed to start such a conversation with a player of Kohli's standing without seeming confrontational.

However, in a podcast appearance, Ten Doeschate noted the effect of 'player power' in contemporary times on dressing room politics, noting that many international coaches do not want to interfere when their star players are having a tough time. Ten Doeschate had been inducted into the Indian team in July 2024.

"I think a lot of coaches are afraid to make interventions because it can be seen that you are, you know, trying to justify your job, or you're interfering, or you're just saying things for the sake of saying it." You've got to strike the balance of making an intervention that's going to help the player or confusing them,” Ten Doeschate said on the TalkSPORT Cricket podcast.

The former Netherlands all-rounder reflected on the courage required to broach the recurring mode of dismissal with Kohli during the high-stakes tour.

"I never want to be a coach who is scared of an opinion from someone else for stepping in, for saying the right thing. I actually was just telling a really great story about Virat and the troubles he had in Australia with driving the ball and nicking off. Eventually, in the fourth Test, I went to intervene and chat to him. And he was brilliant about it! And he actually wanted someone to chat to him.

But my sense is, for a coach to go to a player like Virat Kohli and intervene and almost call them out on what's happening can be dangerous for you as a coach. And I think getting the wording right around that and how you deliver it is so important.

The way the power shift has moved towards the players in the modern era does mean that a lot of coaches are scared to bring up topics or at least get talking about it,” ten Doeschate said.

Ten Doeschate stressed that good coaching is seldom a matter of imposing instructions but rather of fostering open dialogue. He disclosed that Kohli took care to clarify the tactical reasoning behind the shot he chose to play.

"You don't have to agree. You might say, 'I want to drive on the up for these reasons,' and that's actually what happened with Virat. He really explained why he wanted to play the way he played, and then you can tweak around that.

There's always a risk that you sort of unsettle his frame of mind. You know, he might be in a really good place, and now you say, 'You know, I've noticed when you're pulling... you're just taking your eye off the ball. ' Technically, you might want him to watch the ball a little bit longer, but now all of a sudden, he's thinking about pulling, and he's got to go out and face Mitchell Starc. So that's not the time to do it,” Ten Doeschate said.

"In that situation, it had been bubbling away, and it was more a case of me building up the courage and delivering it in the right way. I was lucky enough to have a decent relationship with Virat. He's obviously not someone who needs a lot of coaching, and that was one thing that really stuck out – the manner of the dismissal being so same-same.

So, I had thought about it a lot, and I thought about how I could deliver it. You know, I'm not going to go to him and say, 'Mate, you've got cover drives all over the show.' But I then worked out a time – it was during a rain break – where I could deliver it in quite a non-confrontational way. And credit to him, the way he took it on ended up being a really great discussion. Unfortunately, it didn't deliver the results we wanted towards the back end of the series, but you know, I'd say if you can deliver it to someone like him, you can deliver it to anyone. Just finding the right way of dropping your message is really important,” the former India assistant coach added.

Virat Kohli decided to retire from Tests after the Australia tour, announcing his decision mid-IPL in 2025. Ryanten Doeschate, on the other hand, has joined KKR's coaching setup ahead of IPL 2027.