Former Indian skipper Virat Kohli has once again taken the guts to talk about his disturbed mental health. Since his form has been suffering across all formats, the 33-year-old has been subjected to mental pressure.
Apart from his struggle to register the 71st international century, he has been failing to score decent runs in all three formats. Kohli has been the only cricketer to average 50 plus in all formats, but his Test average has dropped down to 49.5. If his form in T20Is continues to suffer, Kohli’s average in the format might fall below 50 as well.
He has earlier talked about his mental state, saying he feels alone in a room full of people. Once again, he has been catching the limelight for mentioning astonishing aspects he has come across, followed by his run drought.
It has been three years since he last scored a century. Thus, pressure has been coming from all over the world. The cricketer does not look satisfied with himself either, despite the courage system around him. He has revealed not playing the West Indies and the Zimbabwe series was his choice to get rid of mental pressure, and the board respected that.
According to Kohli, after his mediocre showcases in England, he wanted to take a break from cricket. On his return to cricket after a month, he is optimistic about himself as the team’s Asia Cup stint kick starts on August 28th versus arch-rivals Pakistan.
In an interview with Star Sports, he revealed,
“For the first time in 10 years, I didn’t touch my bat for a month. I came to realise that I was trying to fake my intensity a bit recently. I was convincing myself that no, you had the intensity. But your body was telling you to stop. The mind was telling me to take a break and step back. I’m looked at as a guy who is mentally very strong, and I am. But everyone has a limit, and you need to recognize that limit. Otherwise, things can get unhealthy for you. This period taught me a lot of things that I wasn’t allowed to come to the surface. When they eventually came up, I embraced it,”
Opening up on the gap, Kohli says it was the longest-ever break from his bat throughout his career. He further maintained that he loved the break time, which has helped him to be a better version of himself.
“This has been an amazing break. I never had this long a break and the first thing I realised was that I woke up in the morning and was excited to go to the gym. Which isn’t a thing like, ‘oh I have to keep up with this’. So that was my first mark. You can tend to get carried away with so many demands nowadays… You have seen the results of what happened to Ben Stokes and Trent Boult… Moeen [Ali] retiring from Test cricket. These aren’t abnormalities but it happens, and people who are in touch with them know what’s happening in their lives”,
While revealing the reason for his poor mental state, the former Indian captain narrated that he is the only Indian cricketer to have played the most number of matches since 2020 and was not rested. His decision to blackout from West Indies and Zimbabwe series was not adored by many, however, some kept their support with him. Also, it was understood that his break hints at retirement.
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Virat Kohli talks about his poor mental health
