'The day my drive goes away, I won't play,' says Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli opens up on his poor form to Star Sports in the ongoing edition of the Indian Premier League and says he is actually going through the 'happiest phase' of his life.

The former Bangalore captain, who gave up his captaincy last year, is having an abysmal IPL season, which is one of his worst since 2008. The right-hander managed to score only 288 runs in 14 IPL games this year at an average of 24 (at the time of writing).

In addition, the modern great has not scored an international century in any format for India since November 2019. However, despite going through this dip in his career, Virat says these things are becoming 'irrelevant' to him and he is enjoying this phase of life more than ever.

"I am not finding any source of encouragement or disappointment by what happens on the field."

The drive is still there…

"Not to say that I don't have the same drive; my drive will never die down. The day my drive goes away, I'll not be playing this game."

"I'm actually in the happiest phase of my life. I am not finding any self-worth or value in what I do on the field. I'm way past that phase. This is a phase of evolution for me," Kohli told Star Sports.

The only thing that let down Kohli is his inability to contribute to the team during this time. This thing is not about himself at all but his team. He is still the same as Virat, as hungry as ever to contribute to the team as much as he can. 

"So, this has not been about myself, this is about the fact that I have not contributed to my team's cause as much as I would have wanted to or I pride myself to, and that is something that always disappoints me, not what I do as an individual," Kohli added.

The former Indian captain also opened up to the idea of taking a break and said he had listened to what Ravi Shastri said. 

"It's not a lot of people who mentioned it (taking a break). There is one person precisely who has mentioned it, which is Ravi Bhai. It is definitely a thing that one needs to consider because you don't want to do something which you are not a part of 100%, and I have always believed in that in my life. So to take a break and when to take a break is obviously something that I need to take a call on."