‘He just does not look at the phone’: Virat Kohli reveals how MS Dhoni reached out to him in his tough days

Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni might be two contrasting personalities when it comes to aggression and calmness, but one thing that unites them is their passion for the sport and nation. Both Kohli and Dhoni share a great bond with each other and have made India proud on many occasions.

Kohli made his all-format debut under the leadership of Dhoni and shared the dressing room with the world cup winning captain from 2008 till 2019. The 41-year-old Ranchi cricketer has backed Kohli at many instances and continued his support for the Delhi-born cricketer even after taking retirement from international cricket.

Notably, Kohli had a forgetful 2022 and was going through a very rough patch in his life. The 34-year-old failed to impress both as a captain and player last year and later took the call to step down from the post of India’s Test captain. But even after giving up the captaincy, he struggled to regain his form and faced a massive outburst from fans and cricket pundits. However, the right-handed batter didn’t give up on himself and made a dream comeback later that year by smashing his maiden T20 century against Afghanistan in the Asia Cup and has ever since continued that touch in the international arena.

While speaking on the RCB Podcast Season 2, Kohli has now revealed that apart from his wife Anushka Sharma and childhood coach, only Dhoni stood by him in those tough days.

“What is interesting is that throughout this phase apart from Anushka, who has been the biggest source of strength for me because she has been with me throughout this whole time and she has seen me very closely as how have I felt, things that I have gone through, the kind of things that have happened…the only person who, apart from my childhood coach and family…genuinely reached out to me has been MS Dhoni,” said Kohli.

The India star further added that it is almost impossible to connect with Dhoni over the phone and even shared the message the veteran cricketer communicated to him.

“He reached out to me and you can rarely get in touch with him. If I call him on any random day, 99 percent he will not pick up (the phone), because he just does not look at the phone. So, for him to reach out to me…twice it has happened now and one of the things that he’d mentioned in the message while reaching out to me was that: ‘when you are expected to be strong and looked at as a strong individual people forget to ask how are you doing?,” added Kohli.

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February 25, 2023 at 02:36PM