'MS Dhoni Is The Only Person Who Genuinely...': Virat Kohli Reveals MSD's Message To Him During A Tough Phase

Virat Kohli opened up a lot on his bonding with Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni and shared his learnings from the former Indian captain in the newly released podcast by RCB

Source: Twitter

Virat Kohli, who debuted in international cricket under the captaincy of MS Dhoni, is still in awe of the former skipper. In a recently published RCB podcast, Kohli opened up on his relationship with Dhoni, talking about little known secrets of this forever bonding. Not long ago, Kohli had told the media that the only senior cricketer who texted him when he announced quitting Test captaincy was Dhoni. Kohli had ranted about how other former cricketers have many opinions and insights on his batting but no willingness to reach out to him during this bad phase. Last year before Asia Cup, Kohli went through a difficult phase wherein he did not want to touch the bat. He took a one month break from all cricket and kept himself away from the game.

On return, he smashed his first international ton in 3 years and also his maiden T20I hundred as Kohli began to fall in love with the game again. Kohli mentioned during the podcast that a message from Dhoni kept him positive during his tough days. He also said that MSD is most likely to ignore your phone calls as he rarely touches his phone when at home. But admitted that he definitely reaches out to you later. Kohli shared one such rare instance when Dhoni sent a message to him on how to deal with failures.

"He reached out to me and you can rarely get in touch with him. If I call him on any random day, 99 percent he will not pick up (the phone), because he just does not look at the phone. So, for him to reach out to me…twice it has happened now and one of the things that he’d mentioned in the message while reaching out to me was that: ‘when you are expected to be strong and looked at as a strong individual people forget to ask how are you doing?’

He further added, "So, it (Dhoni’s words) hit home for me because I have always been looked at as someone who is very confident, mentally very strong, who can endure any circumstances and find a way and show us the way. Sometimes, what you realise is that at any given point of time in life as a human being you need to take a couple of steps backwards, understand how you are doing, how your wellbeing is placed."

Kohli said that Dhoni empathises with him because he too has been through a lot and realises what it takes to be there at the top and deal with failures.