As former India captain Virat Kohli prepares for his historic 100th Test match for the country, which will be played against Sri Lanka in Mohali from March 4 onwards, his former Delhi teammate Punit Bisht recalled an important day from Kohli’s young days.
Punit Bisht was Virat Kohli’s senior in the Delhi Ranji team when the right-handed batter received the crushing news of his father Prem’s death in midst of a Ranji Trophy match in 2006. Delhi was playing Karnataka and the 17-year-old was at the crease for his team.
Bisht recalls seeing Kohli in the dressing room on the third day of Delhi’s Ranji Trophy match against Karnataka back in 2006, who had tears in his eyes, after getting the news that his father had passed away in the middle of the night due to a brain stroke. The duo was unbeaten overnight, but Kohli was battling a storm inside him.
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“To this day I wonder, how in the world did he muster the courage to drop in at the ground. We were all numb at his tragedy and here the boy was standing in the dressing room and ready to go out and bat. Mind it, his father’s last rites hadn’t been performed and he had just come because he didn’t want his team to lose a batter as we were not in a great position,” Bisht told PTI.
It’s nearly 16 years to that day and Punit can vividly remember how senior players, including skipper Mithun Manhas and coach Chetan Chauhan, had told Virat to go home.
“Chetan sir, if memory doesn’t serve me wrong, was our coach that season. Both Chetan sir and Mithun bhai told Virat to go home as they were not sure whether it would be a prudent idea to let the kid go out there in a tense situation and how he would mentally cope up.
Trust me, no one in the team even had a second thought that he should go back and be with his family and take his own time to grieve. But this is Virat Kohli we are talking about. He was made of different stuff,” Bisht said.
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“Virat was in a zone during those hours. I think for those few hours, he had stopped reacting to grief and showed grit like never before. He played some lovely flicks and his signature cover drive. We had very little conversation. He would just come and say, ‘lamba khelna hai, out nahi hona hai’.”
I didn’t even know what to say. Often in my heart, a feeling would crop up that let me just put my hand on his head, say a few words of comfort. My head said that no, we have a job to do and let’s focus on that. I think he got a debatable decision and missed out on a hundred,” Bisht said.
“It’s good to see that what Virat was at 17, he is still the same at 33. He hasn’t changed his persona,” Bisht said.
(PTI inputs)
