The camaraderie between Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni is not unknown to the cricketing world. The two-time World Cup-winning captain MS Dhoni has guided Kohli for the majority of his time as an international cricketer and thus shares a lot of mutual trust and respect for each other.
Now, before regaining his form once again, Kohli was going through a very rough patch and during which many former cricketers asked the Indian team to drop the maestro and replace him with someone more worthy. The 34-year-old also revealed how no other cricketer except Dhoni reached out to him when the cricketer relinquished his Test captaincy. Talking about the tough times on a podcast hosted by the Bangalore-based franchise of the Indian T20 League, the former India captain revealed how MS Dhoni’s text helped him to focus on the right things and which eventually helped him get his mojo back.
“The only person who genuinely reached out to me was MS Dhoni," the cricketer said on the podcast shared by the Bangalore franchise. "For me, that is such a blessing to know that I could have a such a strong bond and relationship with someone who is so senior to me. It is a friendship which is based on a lot of mutual respect."
Kohli topples Max O’Dowd to become leading run-scorer in 20-20 World Cup
"It is one of the things he mentioned in the same message reaching out to me, that when you are expected to be strong and looked at as a strong individual, people forget to ask how are you doing. So, it hit home to me, it was like this is it,” added Kohli.
With 246 runs from five matches, Virat Kohli is currently the leading run-scorer in the ongoing 20-20 World Cup. With his 26 runs against Zimbabwe, the 34-year toppled Dutch opener Max O’Dowd to regain his spot at the top of the table. He was been very instrumental and played multiple match-winning knocks so far.
As team India now qualified for the semi-finals and is all set to take on England at Adelaide Oval, eyes will be on the run-machine Virat Kohli on whether he can deliver for the team again.