Ricky Ponting Recalls His Own Mental Health Difficulties As He Supports Virat Kohli

Australian cricketing legend Ricky Ponting recently opened out to fans about his own experiences with mental health while talking about the difficulties Virat Kohli has recently encountered.

Virat Kohli, who has previously been extremely vocal about the importance of mental health awareness, was obliged to take a break and recover before returning to competitive play in the most recent Asia Cup. The need for rest for Kohli, who is now without a century, was what triggered the hiatus from cricket.

When Virat Kohli confessed his issues with mental health, the cricketing community was in shock. Like every other player in India, Kohli must have felt the weight of the world on his shoulders as his supporters wanted him to produce above and beyond at the upcoming Asia Cup, especially after he recently went through a protracted run drought.

When India was eliminated from the 2021 T20 World Cup after defeating close rivals Pakistan in the opening game, everything for Kohli began to fall apart. Following this, Kohli resigned as T20 captain, and the BCCI later stripped him of his ODI captaincy. He also left his position as Test captain in January 2022.

I was doing was putting pressure on myself: Ricky Ponting

During a discussion on the ICC Review, Ricky Ponting acknowledged that he had been in a similar scenario in the past, albeit on a much smaller scale. However, Ricky Ponting informed fans and Kohli that dealing with such challenges was a natural part of life.

“I sort of confronted it in a latter couple of years of my job, where my career dropped off rather abruptly… It was almost as if the harder I worked, the worse I got.”

I was so focused and conscious on being flawless and doing things precisely perfectly, believing I needed to do that to get the most out of myself, but all I was doing was placing pressure on myself and not letting myself play the game the way I usually played it. I believe there is some of that in Virat as well.”

“It’s just human nature when things aren’t going the way you want, you push harder, you try harder, and the harder you try the harder it gets,” Ricky Ponting asserted.

Kohli returned to cricket after a month-long break. This was his second such break from international cricket in four months.

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