Virat Kohli: Test captain at 26… no chance
Virat Kohli, India’s Test captain, talks about his vision for the team and analyzes his own batting in an interview with http://www.thecricketmonthly.com, the digital magazine of ESPNcricinfo. Excerpts
On crying when it sunk in that he was going to be the Test captain
We were all taken by surprise (By Dhoni’s decision to retire from Tests) … after about an hour and a half, I went to my room. Anushka [Sharma], who had come to watch that series, was there and I told her about the news…After a while for both of us it sunk in that I am going to be Test captain of India, not just for one or two games but permanently. And that is when I broke down, because I never expected this to happen.
Honestly, if you told me when I started playing cricket that at 26 I will be Test captain of India… no chance.
When was the first time you addressed the team as Test captain?
It was in the manager’s room at the team hotel before we flew to Australia. I told the guys that we are not going there for personal achievements. I told the guys if anyone sitting in the room is thinking I am going to Australia to get two hundreds, I am going to Australia to get three five-wicket hauls, he can be open about it now and he needs to change the mindset. We are going to Australia to win the series. Even the smallest contribution that helps us win a Test match, for me that guy is the Man of the Match. That is the sort of feeling we wanted to spread across the team, where the team feels united, feels together.
On his use of visualisation before batting
It was all instinct before that. I would go out there, start playing. I would figure, “Okay, fine, I am hitting the ball today so I can go for the shots.” But what I found out was, I was not able to play all kinds of shots against the quick bowlers of the world that I wanted to. There would be something that the other good batsmen must be doing since they had so much time to play, say, the pull shot. Everyone knows how to pull the ball but not everyone is able to do it.
I remember speaking to Sachin paaji and he was telling me about the century he hit in Cape Town in 2011. He referred specifically to a shot he hit off Morne Morkel. He said that he had visualised that shot two days back in his mind, that this will happen.
And when it came, his mind was so strongly thinking positive, his body just followed automatically. These sort of things people do not understand. In the Johannesburg Test, Dale was bowling bouncers when I was in my 30s. He kept urging me to pull. Then I saw that one ball for which I had visualised a proper pull shot, playing it down, and I beat deep square leg four feet to his left. I hit it that hard. That clean. So I felt: this is exactly what I had imagined, this is exactly what happened.
On the changes he did to achieve success
Till 2011 I did not really have strong work ethics. I would work hard at practice, I would do fielding drills, I would do batting drills, but the [physical] training part, the eating part, the self-discipline part, all that was not included … That struck me in 2012 going into the IPL. I was high on confidence based on my success in the Australia Test series and the Asia Cup. I had very high hopes for the IPL since I was hitting the ball really well and I wanted to bat really aggressively, but that did not happen. So that really messed me up mentally. My eating habits, my training habits, they became very bad. I looked at myself in the mirror after the IPL and — this is an honest assessment — I told myself: ‘You cannot look like that if you are an international cricketer. You need to do something.’
On him issuing a statement that he was hurt by people blaming his girlfriend Anushka
I made that statement because it is very important for people to understand how we feel. If people choose to behave in a manner where you are burning effigies, it is very important for people to understand that we have families, our families feel bad. We have people who are emotionally attached to us. We are not all alone in the world. We are human beings with emotions, feelings. I wanted to put out there how I feel.
