Virat Kohli spoke at the Royal Challengers Bengaluru Innovation Lab Indian Sports Summit, ahead of the IPL 2025, about the balance between his calm and aggressive on-field personas.
Despite becoming more composed on the field recently, Kohli was chastised during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for shoulder-charging debutant Sam Konstas in the fourth Test in Melbourne.
He also had aggressive exchanges with the audience, referring to the 'Sandpaper Gate' controversy, which led to one-year bans for Steve Smith and David Warner in 2018.
"It is naturally kind of getting tapered down again. People are not happy about that either. I do not know what to do, to be honest. Earlier, my aggression was a problem, now my calmness is a problem. It is like, I have no idea what needs to be done, and that is why I do not focus on it much.
The kind of person I am, the kind of personality I have, yes, I do have tendencies to kind of go overboard. And I've never shied away from that. But the starting point is, okay, sometimes it might not have gone out with the right intent, but more often than not, the starting point has been of care. I want this all to be an event that helps my team win. That is why you see the celebration that I have when we pick up a wicket in a tight situation. Because I am like, yes, this is exactly what needs to happen. And I represent it like that,” Kohli said at the RCB event.
"My competitiveness has not gone down. So, I think for a lot of people, it is very difficult to process how is the competitiveness going to be at the same level if the aggression is not. You can still be aggressive in your mind, but you do not necessarily need to express it out there every now and then out of frustration, which I have - I mean, in the recent past as well, which is not a great thing, to be honest, I don't feel great about those things myself,” he added.
Kohli is coming into the IPL 2025 on the back of 218 runs for India in their triumphant ICC Champions Trophy 2025 tournament.
The star batter will make his next appearance in RCB's IPL 2025 campaign, which begins on March 22 against the Kolkata Knight Riders at Eden Gardens.
Kohli has scored the most runs in IPL history, totaling 8,004 in 252 matches. He maintains an average of 38.66 and a strike rate of 131.97, with eight centuries and 55 fifties.
Kohli won the Orange Cap in the IPL 2024, scoring 741 runs at an average of 61.75 and a strike rate of 154.69. His performance had one century, five fifties, and 38 sixes.
