Virat Kohli: “I am Not Religious”

After a weeks from the setback in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, a few weeks of talks of a squad revamp, a few weeks of criticizing the captain and coaching staff, the talks are back to cricketing action with the squad for West Indies tour announced. Virat Kohli is still the Indian captain in all the formats and he is back to his daily routine of working hard, and working harder.

In an exclusive interview with the Times of India (TOI), Virat Kohli spoke about various aspects, from World Cup disappointment to his spiritual life beyond cricket.

When asked about his spritual or religious beliefs, Kohli said that doing things with correct intention was important and his goal is to make his family proud.

“Eventually, you have to realize that life is way bigger than cricket. Cricket is everything to a profesional cricketer when they are in that moment. Eventually, my goal in life is giving the same kind of upbringing that my wife and I had to our family. Those things become your priority. You have to understand that this is going to end one day.

“If you have the right intention, whatever you are doing, you’ll be involved in that fully, because you’re doing it for a reason,” Kohli told TOI.

He also said that he would embrace all religions and people were more similar to each other than they realize.

“I am not religious and accept all kinds of people. I believe everyone is spiritual. They don’t realize it but we are all the same,” he said.

Kohli said that he doesn’t do anything to please or irritate others. “I have always maintained that I am someone who is doing things which are organic. I am not doing anything to either piss off or please anybody. I am this,” he said

“I have met Leander and spoken to him about tennis, met Harry Kane.. despite different rules in different sports, if you look at people who have done well, the mindset is exactly the same” – Virat Kohli

Kohli was also asked about the World Cup loss, he said that he has learnt most from failures but it is difficult to digest the fact that they have lost a World Cup semi-finals.

“I have learnt most in my life from failures and setbacks. The worst setbacks not only motivated me but also improved me as a person, made me understand the importance of those times more than the success,” he said. “When your belief is right up there and everyone’s playing so well, and suddenly, you know, you’ve been outplayed. It’s very difficult to digest because you didn’t make many mistakes to be knocked out.”

On his successful journey from a young player to a leader, he accredited consistency, which according to him could be boring and tough. “If you give up, the journey is done. There’s no option but to get up again and work hard, do the same things again and again. Consistency and success is nothing but repeating the same things day in day out. It’s actually boring. Consistency is boring. It’s very tough.”

Virat Kohli praised the next generation of players coming up and said that their intent should be to play for the country although tournaments like IPL give them good exposure. “Skills have developed because of exposure to tournaments like IPL. They are so confident by the time they come here that they learn very quickly from their mistakes, because they have already played in front of so many people,” he said. “But the intent has to be that ‘I am using this platform to play for my country.'”

Kohli, last year, had started The Virat Kohli Olympic Foundation which spends a minimum of? crore every year on the inductees of the Athletes Development Programme. “The idea through my foundation is to help someone attain peak fitness, to help someone in their journey,” he said about his foundation.