Indian cricket team star batter Virat Kohli© AFP
It was a horrible campaign for Indian cricket team star batter Virat Kohli in the recently-concluded Test series against Australia. Although he scored a brilliant century in the first Test encounter in Perth, he failed to score big after that and finished with just 190 runs in 5 matches. Kohli’s weakness against bowls outside the off-stump was another point of discussion and it resulted in massive criticism both from fans as well as experts. Recently, there has been a lot of chat about Kohli not learning from his mistakes and allegedly not paying heed to coaching instructions.
In a conversation with former India batter Subramaniam Badrinath on YouTube, former India coach Bharat Arun opened up about what it was like coaching Kohli and how exactly he reacted to criticism and advice from the coaches.
“See, Virat Kohli will definitely ask. If you suggest changes to him or anything like that, you should have a very good reason as to why you are suggesting it. I am sure that he will do so because he is the No. 1 batter in the world. When you make suggestions about what is wrong, he will ask questions like – what is wrong with me and how did I miss my runs,” Bharat Arun explained during the conversation.
Meanwhile, former batter Robin Uthappa has held Virat Kohli indirectly responsible for cutting short Yuvraj Singh‘s international career after he beat cancer to return to the team, saying the flamboyant all-rounder’s request for certain fitness concessions was denied by the then India captain.
One of India’s finest players in white-ball cricket, Yuvraj was one of the big reasons for the team’s twin World Cup success under MS Dhoni‘s leadership, but after the title triumph in the 2011 ODI showpiece, he was diagnosed with cancer and was promptly treated for the same in the US.
Yuvraj then made a remarkable recovery to fight his way back into the Indian team and also scored a hundred against England in an ODI, but after a quiet outing in the Champions Trophy in 2017, he was ignored and decided to retire from the game in 2019.
(With IANS inputs)
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