Indian skipper Virat Kohli recently revealed that he was in a huge depression after England’s tour in 2014 because of his unpleasant performance against the hosts. He also revealed that he had a fruitful conversation with Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar who opened up his mind and give him a wider perspective. Sachin advised him not to fight with negative feelings as they become stronger when we fight with them.
“I did have a chat with him about the mental side of things as well and the thing that he told me was, in cricket what he experienced as if you are going through a strong negative feeling and if that is coming into your system regularly, it is best to let it pass. If you start fighting that feeling, it grows stronger. So, that is the advice I took on board and my mindset really opened up from then on,” Kohli told renowned broadcaster Mark Nicholas on the latter’s podcast ‘Not Just Cricket’ according to ANI.
Skipper Virat Kohli was unable to fight with his own negative feelings because of his performance against the hosts. He averaged just 13.50 in the Test series during the tour, which makes him depressed and he felt alone for a while.
“I did (feel depressed). It’s not a great feeling when wake up knowing that you won’t be able to score any runs and I think all batsmen have felt that at some stage or the other that you are not in control of anything at all. And you just don’t understand how to get over it. I think when you look back at a very difficult phase, you realize that you had to go through that phase fully to be able to understand what is wrong and rectify and move forward and open yourself up for change. That was a phase where I literally couldn’t do anything to overturn what I was going through. I felt like I was the loneliest guy in the world,” said Kohli, recalling the England tour back in 2014.
He also said: “For me, personally, that was a revelation that you could feel that lonely even though you a part of a big group. I won’t say I didn’t have people that I could speak to but not having a professional to speak to who could understand what I am going through completely, I think is a huge factor. I think I would like to see it change. Someone that you can go to at any stage, have a conversation around and say ‘Listen this is what I am feeling, I am finding it hard to even go to sleep, I feel like I don’t want to wake up in the morning. I have no confidence in myself, what do I do?'”
