India’s star batter Virat Kohli recently opened up on his captaincy debacle with the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). While addressing the women’s team of the franchise, Kohli revealed how he felt down and out after multiple failures and also revealed the reason behind his decision to give up the captaincy. Notably, Kohli stepped down as RCB captain in 2021, after leading the team for nine years.
While Kohli made thousands of runs playing for the RCB, he could not lead the team to ultimate victory. The best RCB performed under Kohli was when they reached the summit clash in the 2016 edition of the tournament. But more than success, RCB tasted defeats and the worst was when they suffered six defeats in a row during the 2019 edition. Although the franchise made it to the playoffs three times in a row after that, RCB are yet to win the cup.
Talking about all this, Kohli revealed how he felt that there was no belief left in him and how it eventually pushed him off the throne. “The time when my captaincy tenure was coming to an end here, I was left with no belief, to be very honest. I was gone, the tank was absolutely empty,” Kohli said during his motivational speech to the RCB women’s team.
“But that was my own perspective, that was me just an individual saying that I have seen so much of this, I can’t just manage it, handle it anymore.”
Kohli then talked about how he moved on from that feeling and found his zeal back. “But the next season, new people came in, they had new ideas, and there was another opportunity. They were excited, maybe as an individual, I wasn’t that excited. But they created the energy and we reached the playoffs three years in a row,” Kohli said.