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'He Was Saddest When His...,' Ishant Sharma Reveals How Virat Kohli Dealt With His Father's Death

image-ljcooy4dVirat Kohli and Ishant Sharma together playing for Team India (Twitter)

Team India stalwarts Ishant Sharma and Virat Kohli have known each since their Under-17 days. The two cricketers made their Ranji Trophy debuts in the same match for Delhi, and made their respective international debuts for India just a year apart from each other.

While Kohli has gone on to become one of the all-time batting greats across all formats, Sharma has scripted his name among Indian cricket’s most successful fast bowlers of all time.

Sharing a huge camaraderie with each other, the Delhi pacer has uncovered details about a personal tragedy Kohli suffered during a 2006 Ranji Trophy match in their hometown.


'Kohli was saddest when his father died' - Sharma

Ishant recently appeared on The Ranveer Allahbadia show on YouTube. During the podcast, the speed demon recalled memories of how his Delhi teammate Virat Kohli dealt with the death of his father during a Ranji Trophy match in 2006.

Prem Kohli, Virat’s father, died of a heart attack on December 18 that year. Meanwhile, the then 18-year-old was playing a home Ranji Trophy Super League fixture against Karnataka, alongside his friend Ishant Sharma within the Delhi team. Sharma said:

"I have never seen him cry, but I know that he was saddest when his father expired. We were playing a Ranji Trophy match against Karnataka. He was batting overnight, and he used to always pick me up for the match. We used to go from Patel Nagar to Ferozshah Kotla. He was very serious that day."

"I asked him why he was so serious, but he did not reply. I gave him a tapli (a gentle knock) on the head. Then the other person told me that his father has expired. I did not know how to react. We were 17. He still batted and scored 80 runs (90) as well. If something like that had happened to me, I don't think I could even have gone to the ground."

In the meantime, Sharma’s friendship with Kohli grew even stronger during their playing days for Team India. Moreover, the speedster flourished the most under the latter’s Test captaincy, as he claimed 121 wickets from the 43-match period.

His spell under Kohli also massively improved his Test bowling average, bringing it down from a concerning 37 to below 32 at one stage.