‘I was cranky; it wasn’t fair on Anushka’- Virat Kohli opens on his rough patch in international cricket

Virat Kohli started off 2023 with a bang as he scored his 45th ODI Hundred against Bangladesh on Tuesday. He scored a superb 113 off 87 balls with 12 fours and one six. This helped India win the first ODI by 67 runs and take a 1-0 lead in the three-match ODI series. 

Kohli was named Player of the match and was interviewed by Suryakumar Yadav after the game. Suryakumar Yadav asked some thought-provoking questions to Kohli and he told the former India captain to take the fans through his journey, trials, tests, and triumphs.

During the last two years when Kohli was going through a rough patch of form. Kohli was more than happy to talk about the testing times and said that he was feeling very agitated and he got very cranky and frustrated when the runs did not flow off his blade.

Kohli went on to talk about how that tumultuous phase in his life began to show on his family, especially his wife Anushka Sharma. Kohli felt that it was unfair on Anushka to see him in a state of mind such as this where he was feeling restless.

I was getting frustrated when I did not score runs – Virat Kohli

“Sometimes what happens is that you’ll experience it too as you are playing regularly now, people start to expect you to perform every time. They are like he will certainly do the job and, to keep up with those expectations is a very intense process. When your cricket is going well, everything else falls into place but as soon as there is a dip, frustration starts to creep in,” Kohli said to Suryakumar.

“In my case too, frustration started creeping in. I wanted to play in a certain way, according to the expectations of everyone and mine as well. But cricket was not allowing me to do that and hence I found myself way too far from where my game was. My attachments and desires had totally taken over. And that is when I realised that I can’t be totally away from who I am and I can’t live in denial.  Because, in my case, it brought me more frustration. I was getting very cranky, very snappy in my space which was not fair on anyone around me- Anushka and closed ones.” 

“I think it’s not fair on the people that support you and are with you all the time to keep seeing you in that space. So, I had to take responsibility and put things in perspective,” Kohli added.