Virat Kohli speaks up on Shane Warne (Image Credits: Twitter)
Virat Kohli.(Image Credits: Twitter)

Virat Kohli is the only player in the history of the Indian Premier League to have been associated with just a single franchise since the inception of the tournament.

The likes of Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni, and Suresh Raina, too have been part of more than one franchise but not Kohli. He was RCB’s first pick when players from the 2008 U-19 WC squad were being drafted into IPL sides. He has since remained with RCB.

He has always been retained by the team, despite several attempts by other people to get him into the auction, but he has always remained the franchisee that has backed him all these years.

Virat Kohli. Photo-IPL
Virat Kohli. Photo-IPL

Not Winning The IPL Is Not The End Of The World: Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli is the highest run-scorer in IPL. He has played 217 games in the tournament and has captained the franchise in 140 games. He won 66 games as captain and lost 70.

“What this franchise has given me in terms of opportunities in the first three years and believed in me that is the most special thing because as I said there are many teams who had the opportunity, but they didn’t back me, they didn’t believe in me,” Kohli said on RCB’s franchisee show on Star Sports.

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When Kohli resigned from RCB’s captaincy prior to the start of the 2nd leg of the tournament, he had said that he would forever remain an RCBian.

“To be very honest I thought about it. Yes, I won’t shy away from it and I have been approached many times as well to come into the auction somehow, put my name there and stuff. And then I thought about it, I was like at the end of the day everyone has X numbers of years that they live and then you die and life moves on.

Shane Watson, Virat Kohli
Shane Watson, Virat Kohli. Image: Twitter

“There would have been many great people who won trophies but no one addresses you like that. No one addresses you in the room like ‘Oh he’s an IPL champion or he’s a World Cup champion. It’s like if you are a good person, people like you, if you’re a bad guy, they just stay away from you and eventually that’s what life is all about,” Kohli said.

Kohli time and again has mentioned how much he loves the team. He calls RCB his 2nd home much like how it’s for MS Dhoni and Chennai Super Kings.

“For me the understanding that the loyalty with RCB like how I follow my life is far greater for me than the fact that five people in the room will say Oh finally you win the IPL with whoever xyz. You feel good for five minutes but then the sixth minute you could be miserable with some other issues in the life. So it is not the end of the world for me.”

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He has not won an IPL trophy yet and he may be the only player from his batch of u-19 days to have never won the cup, as the likes of Ravindra Jadeja, Manish Pandey, Sourabh Tiwari, Iqbal Abdullah all have tasted success with different franchises.

So now when I am successful and I should fall to the opinion of people saying ‘but’ the IPL. This was the case with me till 2018 England tour happened. For four years of my life I was doing well everywhere in the world, the only thing was ‘but England’.

So there are always going to be ‘but’, you literally can’t live your life like that and I just carry out doing my own things and I actually honestly don’t even bother about a third person beyond myself and Anushka discussing things and just being true to ourselves and that’s it. For me nothing else or no one else’s opinion matters at all,” he added.

Basically, Kohli has absolutely no regrets about not winning the IPL trophy. Though, he in the past has said that losing the 2016 IPL final was one of the saddest moments in his life.

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