Captaincy became too much in the end; stepped down to be happy: Kohli

The constant pressure of leading India and Royal Challengers Bengaluru for nearly a decade and the relentless scrutiny around his batting “became too much in the end” for Virat Kohli, who says he stepped down from leadership to be in a “happy space”.

Kohli resigned as T20 captain after the World Cup in 2021, following which he also relinquished RCB’s leadership role. A year later, he quit Test captaincy following the defeat to South Africa.

Kohli said he reached a point in his career where the constant attention became unbearable.

“At one point, it did become tough for me because there was just too much happening in my career. I was captaining India for a period of 7-8 years. I captained RCB for nine years. There were expectations on me from a batting perspective every game that I played,” said Kohli in an ‘RCB Bold Diaries’ podcast.

“I didn’t have this sense that the attention was off me. If it wasn’t captaincy, it would be batting. I was exposed to it 24×7. It did get very tough on me, and it did get too much in the end.”

Kohli, who also took a month-long break from cricket in 2022 and did not touch a bat during that phase, added that a time had come in his life when he was struggling to by happy in the spotlight.

“That’s why I stepped down because I felt like if I’ve decided I want to be in this place, I need to be happy.

“I need to have a space in my life where I can just come and play my cricket without being judged, without being looked at as what are you going to do this season and what’s going to happen now,” said Kohli, who has been with RCB since the inaugural edition of the IPL.

Leading India to the Under-19 World Cup title triumph does not guarantee one a seamless entry into the senior team, and Kohli said it was his determination and the backing of then skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and coach Gary Kirsten, which helped him secure the No. 3 batting spot in the side.

“I was very realistic about my abilities. Because I had seen a lot of other people play. And I did not feel like my game was anywhere close to theirs. The only thing that I had was determination. And if I wanted to make my team win, I was willing to do anything.

“That was the very reason I got chances to play for India initially. And Gary (Kirsten) and MS (Dhoni) made it very clear to me that we are backing you to play at number three.”

Kohli said the two encouraged him to play his natural game, knowing that he would always be a fighter on the field.

“This is what you can do for the team. What you represent on the field, your energy, your engagement, is of the biggest value to us. We want you to play that way.

“So, I was never looked at as this outright match winner who can change the game from anywhere. But I had this thing, I’m going to stay in the fight. I’m not going to give up. And that is what they backed.”

Kohli feels nervous energy is something that is crucial to success in cricket, and no matter how many runs one scores, it is something that keeps a player in competitive mode.

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“What happens when you’re young is you feel like, ‘if I have scored X amount of runs by the time I’m this age or whatever’, things will ease out. It never happens like that.

“And that is the marker actually. When you stop feeling that nervousness or that anticipation of how things are going to unfold is when people say that you’re done,” he said.

“So that never goes away from you because that very energy is what keeps you engaged to do what you need to do in that moment, in that present moment.”