Sep 15, 2024 07:41 PM IST
Ex-RCB star recalled one such incident when he got a bit carried away and lost his wicket after listening to Virat Kohli’s command.
Virat Kohli has been one of the best in the business for over a decade now, and the young cricketers try hard to learn from him whenever they get a chance to meet him. Meanwhile, playing with him in the same team as Kohli is altogether a different experience for a young batter as he can learn a lot about the game just by witnessing the mastery of the former Indian captain from close quarters. The Indian Premier League provides young cricketers a good platform to play alongside the likes of Kohli and other big superstars.
Manan Vohra, who played over 50 matches in IPL, shared his experience of playing alongside Kohli during his time at RCB as he also compared the Indian star’s batting temperament to veteran Virender Sehwag.
“Jitne Viru paaji calm hai utna hi Virat intense hai. Now, I don’t know much about his mindset, but when I played with him in 2017, he was proactive and intense. He had the idea of what the bowler was planning against him in terms of speed and field placements. In T20 format, it’s important for you to attack every ball, so he also used to tell me the same thing: ‘Try to attack and hit a boundary, and if a single comes, it’s fine’. So it’s like you have to be there and match the frequency with him so that you replicate such kinds of things. Otherwise, an ordinary man can’t do it; he was always looking to dominate the bowlers. He is number 1 in the world for some reason,” Vohra said in a podcast on Taruwar Kohli’s YouTube channel.
‘Virat bhai told me to smash the next ball for a six’
Being arguably the best all-format batter at present, Kohli carries an aura as young players listen to him very carefully and try to inculcate things in their game, but sometimes they also get carried away. Vohra recalled one such incident when he got a bit carried away and lost his wicket after listening to Kohli’s command.
“When you listen to his command, you start feeling like you can smash every ball out of the ground, but you have to be sensible and pick and choose your shots. It was a challenge early on one or two occasions when I was looking to attack, got a bit confused, and got out. Once, we were playing against SRH, and Virat bhai came and told me to smash the next ball for a six off Sandeep Sharma’s delivery. I went for a shot, which was not my strength, and got out. Then, after the match, he came to me and told me I didn’t mean not to read the delivery, advised me to be a little sensible about my shot selection,” he added.
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