‘Asked him about how to handle expectations’ – Indian sensation recalls ‘4-hour long’ chat with Virat Kohli

Any player who is still in their development stages always looks for a mentor or someone to talk to, who has seen it all. Virat Kohli does this really well as he often takes out some time for the budding players. Be it on the sides of the boundary line after matches or outside the field, he is always there to share his experience.

Jemimah Rodrigues revealed how Virat Kohli took out some time for her and Smriti Mandhana when they stayed at the same hotel in New Zealand. Rodrigues said that they only asked for a few minutes of his time, but ended up talking for hours.

Speaking on ‘The Ranveer Show,’ the 21-year old said, “Smriti and I had the opportunity to talk to him. We had asked him ‘we want to speak to you Virat bhaiya about batting. Can we meet?’. We were in the same hotel in New Zealand. He was like ‘yeah sure, come’. So he called us at the cafe and Anushka Sharma was also there. We had asked him for just a few minutes but we ended up speaking for four hours. We spoke half an hour about batting but after that, it was just normal things.”

 I just look at the scoreboard and just focus on it- Virat Kohli

Rodrigues said she felt privileged as she got to speak to many great players. The people that she met have inspired him and helped her in the stages of her career, she added. She recalled speaking to Virat about batting, among other subjects.

Talking about one of the questions she asked Virat, she said she wanted to know how he handled the huge expectations from him.

“I asked him about how to handle expectations. I told him ‘You are Virat Kohli. If you’ve scored a fifty, it’s like you have underperformed for people. So how do you handle that expectation?’ He said ‘for me every time I am out there on the field, I just look at the scoreboard and just focus on it. Do that and don’t focus on crowd and what I can do to help India win. If I stop giving these expectations importance and just look at the process, the results will automatically follow’,” she said.