Virat Kohli who had quit the captaincy role in the IPL said he took that call to give himself some space and manage his workload while he further asserted that it is very difficult for people to understand what a cricketer thinks while taking such decisions.
Virat Kohli, who had resigned as the IPL franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper after the 2021 edition, said he took that call to give himself some space and manage his workload. Kohli had stepped down from his role as a skipper in the shortest format after the T20 World Cup while he also announced that this will be his last IPL as a skipper for the RCB.
He was later removed from the white-ball captaincy before he quit the leadership role in a five-day format. While announcing the Test squad for the South Africa tour, the BCCI named Rohit Sharma as the new Indian skipper.
“I’m not someone who holds onto things more than I should. Even if I know I can do a lot more, if I’m not going to enjoy the process, I’m not going to do it,”
Kohli, one of the modern-day greats, said on “The RCB Podcast” about dropping the captain’s armband.
The former Indian skipper Virat Kohli asserted that it is very difficult for people to understand what a cricketer thinks while taking such decisions.
“Because it’s very difficult for people to understand your decisions unless they are in your situation. From the outside, people have their expectations ‘Oh! How did that happen? We are so shocked’,”
added Kohli, who is on the verge of playing his 100th Test.
“There’s nothing to be shocked about. I explain to people, I wanted some space and I wanted to manage my workload and the story ends there.”
Right from the inaugural IPL till last season, RCB has never won the cash-rich tournament.
Rubbishing all the conversations that people had about his decision, Kohli cleared the air saying,
“There was nothing at all. I keep my life very simple and basic, when I wanted to make a decision, I made a decision and I announced it.
“I didn’t want to think about it and contemplate it for another year. That would’ve done nothing to me, nothing to the environment I’m part of. Quality of life is something very important to me. And the quality of cricket is something very important to me.
“Over some time, you want to do what you’re doing day-in-and-day-out and you want to do as much as you can, but at the end of the day, you have to realize that quality is far more important than quantity,”
stressed Kohli.
“Quantity in hard work but quality in execution. That is the key. If you go for quantity in execution, then you’re going to get burnt out. If I can’t be myself in my everyday life and I can’t be myself on the field, I will change something.
“Because that is who I am. That is the reason I am where I am. And that is the reason why people can connect to me at a certain level. My loved ones, people who are close to me, my friends they connected to me because of that factor, because I’ve always been myself,”
he signed off.