Virat Kohli remains the only cricketer in the history of the Indian Premier League (IPL) to have played all the seasons of the T20 competition for a single franchise. The right-handed batter was part of the Bangalore playing 11 in the first-ever IPL match that was played between the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Royal Challengers Bangalore and since then he has spent his entire IPL season with the same franchise.
And now in an interesting revelation, the former RCB skipper has shared how he wanted to bat in the top 3 and even approached a different franchise for the same. However, the other franchise apparently were in no mood to listen to the young Kohli and denied his proposal. Kohli said that the same franchise return to him in 2011 when he was already a known name in international cricket circuit but the right-handed batter then decided to stay with RCB who gave him the chance to bat in the top-order.
“It's been amazing. Why I value this partnership and journey with RCB so much, is because, in the first 3 years of the IPL, they backed me a lot. Even when the retentions happened, they said, 'We want to retain you'. My only feedback to Ray Jennings at the time was 'I want to bat in top-order. I bat at 3 for India, and I want to bat at 3'. And they said, 'okay, you will bat at 3'. They showed faith in me at the time when I needed it. I was growing in my international career as well," Kohli told Robin Uthappa during an interview for JioCinema.
“That is of more value for me. I won't take names but another franchise who I spoke to at the time... they were not even keen enough to listen to me. I was playing lower down the order at the time (5-6). I was like, ‘if I could get the opportunity to bat in the top of the order somewhere else...’ The same franchise, because I had played for India and performed in 2011, before the retention, came to me and said, 'can you please come to the auction?' I said, ‘no chance. I will always be with the franchise that backs me’," Kohli added.
This season Bangalore got off to a positive start with a dominant win over the Mumbai Indians but have gone off the radar a bit since then and have 2 wins from their five matches. They find themselves at the eighth place on the points table.
Kohli personally has scored two half-centuries from five innings and would want to continue to be amongst the runs for the remainder of the season in a bid to help his team get their hands on that elusive IPL trophy.