Virat Kohli’s frenetic energies may not always have the desired results, as former India head coach Ravi Shastri recalled how he occasionally had to ask the Delhi batter to calm down while waiting his turn to bat.
“At times, I had to calm him ( Kohli) down. If a wicket went, he would jump out of his seat. I would say, ‘Calm down man, let him (dismissed batter) cross halfway, don’t meet him when he’s just 10 yards away from the stumps. Let him come near the boundary line, then cross him’. He was like a cat on a hot tin roof ready to punch out there. That’s Virat for you,” remarked Shastri on the LiSTNR podcast.
‘Get to the bloody gym…’
Kohli and Shastri, as captain and coach, formed a crucial partnership in Indian cricket in the previous decade, where the emphasis on fitness was elevated to new standards. Shastri recounted how running with Kohli in the middle meant bad news for his sluggish teammates.
“It did because he would show them up otherwise. When you are running between the wickets, if you are a lazy bugger, you’ll soon find out. He’ll be completing two runs and you’ll be trying to finish the second and he’ll be looking for the third while you’ve not even finished your second run. Immediately, the message then is, ‘Get to that bloody gym and start training and get fitter’.”
Unreal work ethic
Recounting an incident from the 2018 tour of South Africa, Shastri also hailed Kohli’s work ethic as the best he had ever seen in the game.
“It was unreal, his work ethics were special. I’ve never seen anyone like that. Forget the gym, I remember him getting out early in Cape Town (2018 Test series in South Africa). And he came at the nets at the Centurion and he batted for 45 minutes, then went back in and asked Raghu, a slinger who can crank it up at 150-160 from 16 yards to bowl. And he went after Virat because Virat wanted that,” said Shastri.
“And it was a dodgy pitch so I was a little worried as a coach. The pitch was dodgy and this guy (Kohli) is asking him (Raghu) to go flat out and you’ve got a Test match starting in two days. But he was relentless and then at the ground, day after day there is a routine. So the energy he would bring to the table day in and day out was unreal.”
