When my captaincy tenure was coming to an end, I was left with no belief: RCB star Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli became the full-time Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) captain in IPL 2013. He served as the RCB skipper till IPL 2021. He had announced that he will step down as the captain at the halfway stage of IPL 2021, where RCB eventually bowed out in the Eliminator. Recently, the 34-year-old star player met with the Smriti Mandhana-led RCB camp to motivate them after their five-match winless run in Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2023 edition. During his pep talk, Kohli reflected on his RCB captaincy tenure and made a big claim.

Kohli was quoted as saying in RCB Bold Diaries, “When my captaincy tenure was coming to an end, I was left with no belief, to be very honest. I was gone. The tank was absolutely empty. But that was my own perspective. That was just me as an individual saying that ‘I have seen so much of this, I just can’t manage it, I just can’t handle it anymore.”

He opined, “But the next season, new people came in, they had new ideas, there was another opportunity. They were excited. Maybe as an individual, I wasn’t that excited, but they created the energy and we reached the playoffs three years in a row. And now we start every season with the excitement that there was before. I feel excited now.”

Further, Kohli also recalled IPL 2019 when RCB lost their first six games and were reeling at the bottom. Although they put up a much-improved show from thereon, winning five of their last eight games, but still ended at the bottom in the overall standings.

Recalling that, Kohli said, “In 2019, we lost 6 matches in a row. I clearly remember after we lost the sixth game, we had a get-together in the evening. I walked in, I was the captain. I was completely gone. I couldn’t feel anything. I didn’t recognise myself and I was like I had no belief left whatsoever.”

“When I walked into the post-match get together, the first person I saw was AB. He walked to me and we stood face to face and we were doing is like we had never lost six games in a row in our lives and we played 15 years of international cricket almost together,” he added.

Kohli talked about how players should give their 110 per cent in every game as that is all one can strive for as there is no guarantee of results. His words of wisdom surely helped Mandhana & Co. as they earned their maiden win in WPL 2023, on Wednesday evening (March 15), beating Uttar Pradesh Warriorz (UPW) by five wickets.