I don’t want to go to room, sit alone and sulk: Virat Kohli bats for family on tours

Virat Kohli. FIle
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Star batter Virat Kohli supported the presence of players’ families on tours, saying he would always prefer having personal support around him to deal with tough and intense days on the field, instead of sulking alone in his hotel room.

A BCCI directive which was issued after India’s 1-3 Test series defeat against Australia had curtailed the family time of players for no longer than 14 days on tours exceeding 45 days.

The wife, children or girlfriends of players could be with them for a maximum of one week on shorter tours.

Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammed Shami had their families in Dubai during the recently-concluded Champions Trophy but they did not stay at the team hotel. The expense of the families’ stay was borne by the players and not the BCCI.

“The role of family is very difficult to explain to people…how grounding it is to just come back to your family every time you have something which is intense, which happens on the outside,” said Kohli during RCB’s Innovation Lab summit which concluded here on Saturday.

“I don’t think people have an understanding of what value it brings.” Kohli said having the family around would help a player to recover from on-field disappointments that much quicker.

“I don’t want to go to my room and just sit alone and sulk. I want to be able to be normal. Then you can really treat your game as something that is a responsibility.

“Not in a vague sense, but in a very real way that you finish your commitment and then you come back to your house, you’re with family, and absolutely normalcy in your house and normal family life goes on.

“So, for me, that is absolutely a day of immense pleasure. I won’t miss any opportunities to go out and spend time with my family whenever I can,” said Kohli.

The 36-year-old was “disappointed” because people with no real connection with such issues have been involved in such discussions.

“I feel quite disappointed about that because it’s like people who have no control over what’s going on are brought into conversations and put out at the forefront of that — ‘oh, maybe they need to be kept away’.

“And if you ask any player, do you want your family to be around you all the time? You’ll be like, yes,” he said.

Kohli, one of the fittest cricketers around, said it was tough to convince his mother about his fitness regime, highlighting his strong bond with the family.

“Support system (for fitness) from the team’s point of view wasn’t tough. Convincing my mom what I was doing was way harder. She was very disappointed in the fact that I wasn’t eating any parathas and I was looking weak on the field.

“And I was like, you know what, there are people who are playing in other countries asking me how I’m training. And how I’m very fit now. And you’re telling me I’m looking weak. So I had to convince her that everything’s fine, I’m not sick, don’t worry. That was way harder,” he added.