On a day when Virat Kohli admitted that he was mentally down before taking a break from the game, his successor and India’s current skipper Rohit Sharma said mental health is an aspect that needs to be given due importance as every individual has a different response to his or her problem.

Speaking to Star Sports, Kohli said he was trying to “fake intensity” in order to conceal that he was feeling mentally down. The former India skipper also revealed that he didn’t touch his bat during the break for the first time in a decade.

When Rohit addressed the media on the eve of India’s Asia Cup 2022 opener against Pakistan, he was asked about the same and the Indian captain expressed empathy for everyone who has endured mental health issues.

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“We do talk about these things a lot. Of late, when Covid-19 struck, this has been difficult for a lot of players not just Virat himself,” Rohit told reporters on Saturday (August 27).

“A lot of players have gone through hard times mentally, staying in bubbles, not being able to go out of hotels and there is nothing wrong in it,” he added.

When the COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak, cricket was being played in a bio-secure bubble with everybody associated with the series and tournament undergoing several checks for the virus.

Players and support staff were only shuffling between their team hotels and the cricket stadiums for outdoor practice sessions and games. Nobody was allowed to break the bubble and travel around due to the Coronavirus threat. It was certainly a mentally challenging phase for the players.

“Because how you led your life until then was completely different because you had to stay in bubble and inside hotel for two months, quarantine. Every player had way of responding to that and there is nothing wrong,” Rohit said.

That is also the reason why spacing out games and workload management have become so important, the skipper highlighted.

“If players have his view on that (mental health), we talk about that in our group and what they talk about being mentally fresh and how we can keep them fresh. Freshness is important. Mentally you need to be fresh. So mental health is important,” Rohit stated.

(With PTI inputs)