Virat Kohli Reveals Another Player Alongside MS Dhoni Reached Out To Him During Rough Phase

Asia Cup 2022 turned out to be the game-changer for Kohli as he scored his maiden T20I ton vs Afghanistan in the tournament, breaking his three-year long century drought in international cricket.

Virat Kohli in IPL 2023:  Team India's legendary batter Virat Kohli saw the worst phase of his cricketing career in the year 2022. Kohli's downfall in form started with an unforgettable outing for Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2022 season of the Indian Premier League, followed by a disastrous tour of England after which cricket pundits and fans started questioning his place in the national team. Asia Cup 2022 turned out to be the game-changer for Kohli as he scored his maiden T20I ton vs Afghanistan in the tournament, breaking his three-year long century drought in international cricket. Later, in T20 World Cup, Kohli dazzled by playing a memorable innings against Pakistan. Since then, the star batter has scored one century in Tests and three centuries in ODIs.

Before the Asia Cup started, under-fire Kohli took a one-month break to get himself together, work on his mental and physical health. The move paid off as Kohli made a stunning comeback. Kohli had once revealed in an interview that MS Dhoni was the only Indian player who reached out to him during his rough phase and now he has also added ex-India player Robin Uthappa in that list.

"Because I was not in a space where I was comfortable with myself, I was looking for all kinds of excuses that it must be happening because of this and that or technical changes. But you were in touch with me at that point of time and I beyond a point I figured out people cannot feel what I am feeling. You sensed something with my body language and asked 'Are you okay? Just wanted to check in on you.' That happened very rarely," Kohli said in an interview with Robin Uthappa on 'Jio Cinema.'

"Everyone was like we observe this and this is the solution for it. I couldn't get the point across that whatever shortcoming is there is because of this (pointing towards his head). When you are not right mentally, you are all over the place. There were no technical issues because I have done this for 15 years. It can't be that all went to a standstill and the technical issues pop out right now. When I came back fresh and started hitting the ball again and people were like 'oh you made some serious changes'. But I didn't pick up the bat for six weeks," he added.