Virat Kohli was the centre of attraction at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Tuesday, ahead of Delhi’s home game in the Ranji Trophy against Railways — beginning January 30. And a little visitor to the team’s net session had a simple question for the former India captain.
‘Indian cricketer banne ke liye kya karna padega (what one needs to do to become an Indian crickeer)?’ asked the kid, son of Kohli’s childhood friend, who brought his kid to the practice session.
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Here’s Kohli’s reply to the young boy:
“A lot of hard work humein karni padegi aur aapko practice aur training ke liye bolne ki zarurat nahi padni chahiye papa ko, haina? Khud se, subah uth ke mere ko jana hai practice karne, mere ko training karne jana hai. Aur agar koi ek ghanta practice karta hai toh aap do ghante practice karo,” said Kohli in Hindi.
“Ek hi tareeka hai bas, theek hai?
“Koi agar fifty banata hai, aap hundred banao. Koi hundred banata hai, aap two hundred banao. Jo benchmark hai, uss se double. Toh fir, level up, theek hai? Kabhi agar bolne ki zarurat pade toh that’s not right. You should say ‘I want want to practice’ and we should say ‘no, you can rest one day’, theek hai? Keep working hard and always enjoy playing,” he added.
(Translated to English: “We need to do a lot of hard work, and your dad shouldn’t be asking you to go for pratice and training. You yourself should wake up early and say ‘I have to go for practice’. And if someone practices for one hour, you practice for two hours. That’s the only way, right? If someone makes a fifty, you score a hundred. If someone makes a hundred, you score two hundred — double of the benchmark. Then you will go a level up. If you need to be told to practice, then that’s not right.”)
Kohli will be seen in action in the elite domestic first-class competition for the first time since 2012, after he missed the team’s last match against Saursashtra because of a neck sprain.
Kohli has been going through a torrid run in red-ball cricket over the last few years and scored just 191 runs in 9 innings during India’a five-Test tour of Australia for the Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT).
India lost the BGT 1-3.
