Former India cricketer Ajay Jadeja has opened up about the changes he has seen in Virat Kohli over the years while highlighting the importance of mental health after the former skipper revealed that he didn’t touch his bat for a month for the first time in 10 years.
He further recalled Kohli’s courageous move when the right-hander went to play for Delhi in the Ranji Trophy match a day after his father's death but said if it happened today, the former skipper would not have done it, as he is a different person now.
Ajay Jadeja said on Cricbuzz: “It is a mental sport because it's not just your mind. You are playing in a team. There is a certain role you are playing that affects the other person too. I doubt that he would have not held a bat for 10 years in the first decade. It's the first time that he has experienced this and people look at life differently.
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When you are 18-20 and when you get to 30, or 40, you look at the same scenario differently. This is the same guy who, when his father passed away, went to the cricket ground. He didn't go to the cremation. He went to the cricket ground, finished his innings, and at that age, he thought that is what is to be done. And now he probably thinks differently. That's what he has come out and said.”
Meanwhile, Kohli is returning to the cricket field after a short break, and the whole country wants to see him in his old touch when India takes on Pakistan in the Asia Cup 2022 on Sunday (August 28) in Dubai.
Jadeja said, “Why Virat Kohli is loved is because he does things that no one else has done or no one else has shown. I think the energy that he has shown in the last 10-12 years in international cricket, I doubt there is any other human being who has shown that kind of energy day in and day out on the ground.”
He signed off by saying, “For a man to think that I didn't want to go to a ground tells you what state of mind he must have been in. I am hoping, like the whole country is, that he will score runs because he is bound to, if not today, tomorrow.”
(With Cricbuzz Inputs)
