I Am Proud I Didn't Change My Methods - Virat Kohli

Indian skipper Virat Kohli said he is glad he didn’t change his methods. Virat Kohli has always loved the battle on the field and doesn’t shy away from having a go at the opponent. He has always played his cricket in an aggressive way and there are no second thoughts about it.

Thus, Kohli loves to take the bull by its horns. In fact, the current Indian skipper brings a lot of passion to the table and likes to give his 120% on the field. He always wants to be competitive and likes to get under the skin of the opponent.

Kohli has matured over the years.

Kohli recalled the incident when he raised his middle finger to the Australian crowd on his maiden tour.

“The one thing I remember most is when I’d had enough of the Australian crowd at Sydney [in 2012] and I just decided to flick a [middle] finger at them. ‘I’m so cool’. The match referee [Ranjan Madugalle] called me to his room the next day and I’m like, ‘What’s wrong?’. He said, ‘What happened at the boundary yesterday?’. I said, ‘Nothing, it was a bit of banter’. Then he threw the newspaper in front of me and there was this big image of me flicking on the front page and I said, ‘I’m so sorry, please don’t ban me!’. I got away with that one. He was a nice guy, he understood I was young and these things happen,” Virat Kohli said while talking to Cricket Monthly.

In fact, Kohli said he is proud that he didn’t alter his ways to get success. Kohli didn’t want to change for anyone and backed his methods to savor success at the topmost level.

“I really laugh at a lot of the things I did when I was younger but I’m proud that I did not change my ways because I was always going to be who I am and not change for the world or for anyone else. I was pretty happy with who I was.”

Kohli gives credit to his coach.

Virat Kohli went on to reveal that his coach Rajkumar Sharma guided him on the right path. The Talisman batsman said his coach always told him the right things whenever he veered off the track.

“My coach, Rajkumar Sharma, was always looking at things from the outside and he understood me the most, after my family, because I had interacted him so much over the years. My family as well. Every time they felt like I was not on the right path they told me.

“But my coach was the one that was very stern with me. If I was doing something wrong he would make sure that he got that across, one way or the other. He was the only person I was scared of when I was growing up. I went into his academy when I was nine and even now I still speak to him about my game.

The Indian skipper said he wants to guide the youngsters on the right path and doesn’t want them to make the same mistakes that he made early on in his career.

Time to guide the youngsters on the right path.

“I look forward to guiding the young guys in the team to not make the same mistakes that probably I made when I was their age because I want them to have three more years of quality cricket compared to going up and down, struggling here and there and then finally finding their feet.

“If I see someone making the same mistakes that I committed and I cannot correct them, then it’s my failure. If I choose to stay quiet I’m not really doing my job. You don’t want to suffocate anyone but the mistakes I made early in my career, I would not like to see youngsters make them more than once, because that’s just wasting such an important phase of their lives and careers.”

Virat Kohli has come a long way in his career. In fact, the right-hander has matured over the years and he is one of the best batsmen in all forms of the game.