Asia Cup 2022 Faking to be strong is worse than admitting to be weak: Virat Kohli 

Virat Kohli / Source: Twitter

23 November 2019 – The day when Virat Kohli scored his 70th international century against Bangladesh at Eden Gardens. 

Little did we know that the – once touted as one of the most destructive batters across formats – would be on the cusp of going more than two years without scoring a hundred.

He was last seen in Blue on the tour of England where he failed to score even a half-century. Following a not-so-good series against the Three Lions, Kohli decided to take a break and missed the limited-overs series against West Indies and Zimbabwe. 

Meanwhile, in a recent exchange of words with the broadcaster Star Sports ahead of a high-voltage encounter between arch-rivals India and Pakistan in Dubai on Sunday, the former India captain opened up on his recent mental toiling. 

The 33-year-old revealed how he was trying to fake his intensity but his body was not letting him do so. Kohli further added that once he realized he was struggling mentally, he took a break and didn’t pick up a cricket bat for over a month.

“For the first time in 10 years, I didn’t touch a bat for a month. I thought about it and I came to the realisation that I was trying to fake my intensity a bit recently. You are convincing yourself that you can do it and you have the intensity, but your body is telling you to stop."

"Your mind is telling you to just take a break and step back. I was experiencing that I was not excited to train, I wasn’t excited to practice, and that really disturbed me because this is not who I am, and I literally needed to step away from that environment.”