Kohli said that he had gone through a bout of depression during India's Test series in England in 2014 and those players going through such phases need professional help. India captain Virat Kohli has said that he would like to see more mental health awareness in cricket. Kohli was talking to Mark Nicholas on his podcast ‘Not Just Cricket’ about the mental health issue. In the podcast, he also said how Tendulkar advised him not to indulge in the ‘negative feelings’
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While talking about Sachin Tendulkar, Kohli said that Tendulkar help him ‘open-up’ about these thoughts. He exactly said this: “I did have a chat with him about the mental side of things as well and the thing that he told me was, in cricket what he experienced was if you are going through a strong negative feeling and if that is coming into your system regularly, it is best to let it pass. If you start fighting that feeling, it grows stronger. So, that is the advice I took on board and my mindset really opened up from then on.”
Kohli scored 1, 8, 25, 0, 39, 28, 0,7, 6 and 20 in five Tests in the 2014 England series, averaging 13.50 in his 10 innings -- his lowest in a series involving three or more Tests.
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"You just don't understand how to get over it. That was a phase when I literally couldn't do anything to overturn things...I felt like I was the loneliest guy in the world," Kohli added.
The India captain said that players often get dropped after going through a bad patch of form but that is not a solution for those suffering from poor mental health.
He was quoted speaking at the ‘Not Just Cricket’ podcast by Mark Nicholas as per ANI.