“When I entered, 35000 fans were booing my name” – Kohli talks about his feelings during the 2018 Edgbaston Test

Virat Kohli’s adversary during India’s 2014 tour of England was right-arm bowler James Anderson, who dismissed the Indian captain four times. Just 134 runs were scored by Kohli in  10 innings. Yet in 2018, Kohli returned to England a completely different batsman after finishing the Test series with a remarkable 593 runs, including two hundreds and three half-centuries. 

Kohli started the tour with a magnificent first innings hundred at Edgbaston and recalls how the crowd welcomed him to the ground and to the crease during that Test. Kohli spoke about this incident on the second season of the Bangalore franchise’s podcast. He also spoke about how fans considered him a failed captain in the same podcast.

What did Kohli say about the English crowd on the 2018 tour?

He said, “My heart was pumping because all I could think of was the flashes of 2014. I walked in and there were about 35,000 people at the stadium and they all started booing the moment I entered the field. My heart started beating faster. They have this amazing ability to create an environment where you feel like I have got no chance here.”

The former Indian skipper spoke about facing his first ball on the 2018 tour against Anderson. He said, “I remember James Anderson was the guy running with the ball, and I was like, what are the odds here I am facing the first ball from him again after four years. In my mind, I was like ‘please just play the first ball and he bowled it at the fourth stump and I left that ball’.

“I became calm after that first ball and then I got dropped at 22. I could have got out on 22 in that innings but I got 149 and I didn’t look back from there, so that’s when you realised that you just can’t sit there and crib about things that didn’t go right. There are a lot of things that went right. So much weight was lifted from my shoulder.”