Virat Kohli Reveals The Moment He Thought Of Leaving RCB

While Virat Kohli is yet to win the Indian Premier League (IPL) title with Royal Challengers Bangalore, his association with the franchise is nothing less than legendary. The right-handed batsman is the only player to play for a single franchise since the inaugural season in 2008.

On a personal level, Virat Kohli's exploits in the IPL are second to none. No player has scored more runs or hit more centuries than him in the IPL. While no other batsmen have even managed to reach the 7000-run mark in the tournament, Kohli has already hit more than 8000 runs. His 8 centuries is also an IPL record.

Even after achieving so much with the bat, Virat Kohli is yet to win the IPL. He came close to 2016 when he scored almost 1000 runs in a season, including a record 4 tons. However, even that superhuman effort was not enough for his team to win the title as the Bengaluru-based outfit finished runners-up.

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Virat Kohli to leave RCB?

Virat Kohli has revealed that he did think of leaving RCB during the 2016-19 phase when he was arguably at the peak of his career. In a recent podcast, Kohli revealed that he had the opportunity to join another team, but he eventually decided against it.

"I’ve told this before. I’ve had this opportunity to explore, to look elsewhere, especially in the peak years of my career. From 2016-19, I had these constant suggestions to switch.

"At one point, it did become really tough for me because there was too much happening in my career. I was captaining India for a period of 7-8 years, and was captaining RCB for 9 years. There were expectations from me from the batting perspective, every game I played.

"I did not have the sense that attention was off me. I was always in the space where I didn’t know ‘what to do’? I was exposed to it 24×7 and it got really tough on me, I decided, if I wanted to be in this place, I needed to be happy and I wanted to be in space where I could just play my cricket, without being judged," Virat Kohli told Mayanti Langer in the podcast.

The relationship is more valuable to me: Virat Kohli:

Speaking further, Kohli opened up on the factor that eventually convinced him to continue his journey with the Bengaluru-based outfit. Kohli said that while he was not tempted to join another team, he did think about it. However, he eventually decided against it and continued his association with the RCB.

"I wouldn’t say I was tempted, but I did think about it. I also asked myself the question, ‘What is more valuable to me?’. I won a lot of things in my career for India, I have won a lot of accolades as well.

"So I had to take a call. ‘Do I want to go into a new setup and figure out life again?’. So that is when I realised that the relationship is more valuable to me, and also the mutual respect that has been created over so many years. And now I’m just gonna see it through. Whether we win or don’t win, it’s fine. This is my home," said Kohli.

RCB is going through a historic run

Meanwhile, RCB is enjoying a brilliant campaign in the ongoing IPL 2025 and will be keen to go all the way. With 8 wins from 11 games, they are currently at the top of the table. Kohli is also enjoying a prolific season with the bat and is currently the leading run-scorer.

Also Read: Rishabh Pant, Venkatesh Iyer Shamed Publicly After Being Picked In 'IPL 2025 Frauds And Scammers Team'