Virat Kohli
Virat Kohli (Credits: Twitter)

Team India skipper Virat Kohli is one of the greatest cricketers of the modern-day cricket. Meanwhile, he had to sacrifice a lot in personal life to attain this high. So much so that the flamboyant cricketer from Delhi turned vegetarian in 2018. Kohli also made startling revelations that he had to gain weight to prepare for the stringent five-day format of the game.

The talismanic run-scorer recently reduced the gap between him and Australia’s Steve Smith at the top of ICC’s batting chart after scoring his 27th Test century in the historic day-night Test. India banked on him and a special effort from the fast bowlers to win the series 2-0. As a result, they once again extended their lead at the top of the ICC World Test Championship’s points table.

India, Harsha Bhogle, India vs Australia 2019
Virat Kohli during a practice session ahead. (Image Courtesy: BCCI)

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Virat Kohli credits Shankar Basu for his transformation

In the process, Virat Kohli also broke a plethora of records proving once again the champion cricketer that he is. However, it didn’t come all easy. He had to completely change his diet and follower former India trainer Shankar Basu and put on some weight by eating more carbohydrate to prepare for Test cricket.

“For the last year and a half, I have been vegetarian. Before that, I was consuming meat which was working well for me. In a phase, it worked really well for me. I think from 2016 January to about the end of the IPL. Before we started playing Test cricket, we only had 5-6 months of T20 cricket so I was just doing lifting and I was eating a lot of red meat, you know consuming a lot of meat,” Kohli said to Boria Majumdar.

“So I became a very explosive athlete and I was able to play the power game really well but then Test matches came along. I had to put on a bit more fat, consume more carbohydrates,” he added.

RCB support staff, Mike Hesson, Virat Kohli
Virat Kohli with Shankar Basu. (Credits – Twitter)

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Furthermore, speaking about his diet, Virat Kohli credited all his success to trainer Shankar Basu, who has been a key figure in Kohli becoming one of the fittest athletes in the world currently. Kohli said that his trainer understood his body just like he did, which worked wonders for him and he only followed his routine. In conclusion, Kohli highlighted the importance of consistency in Test cricket which has been the main attribute behind his success.

I think having Basu sir around was the biggest help for me. I would just listen to him and then I started understanding it myself. So he would tell me you know what you need to do and I would comeback fresh when I took a break because I understood it myself. I wanted to learn. It was similar to batting you know when you go out there and play, you get a hundred, it’s not by chance.

“You need to understand from ball one to ninety or hundred how many balls you play or Test matches you play a lot more. What were you doing for all those deliveries, so you can repeat it that’s consistency,” Kohli concluded.

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