Virat Kohli has advocated for the presence of families on tours, emphasising the balance he felt they bring to players who might be going through tough times on the field.
“It’s very difficult to explain to people how grounding it is to just come back to your family every time you have something which is intense, which happens on the outside,” Kohli said during the RCB Innovational Lab Indian Sports Summit ahead of IPL 2025, when asked about the role his family had played on tough tours.
“I don’t think people have an understanding of what value it brings to a large extent. And I feel quite disappointed about that because it’s like people who have no control over what’s going on are kind of brought into conversations and put out at the forefront that, ‘oh, maybe they need to be kept away.””
In the aftermath of India’s recent 3-1 Test series loss in Australia, the BCCI issued a directive that limited the time players spent with their families on tours. It ruled that players’ immediate families – partner and children – can join them only after the first two weeks on tours of over 45 days, while staying for no longer than 14 days. On shorter tours, families can accompany players for up to a week.
“If you ask any player, do you want your family to be around you all the time? You’ll be like, yes. I don’t want to go to my room and just sit alone and sulk,” Kohli said. “I want to be able to be normal. And then you can really treat your game as something that is a responsibility. You finish that responsibility, and you come back to life.
“Like, there could be different situations happening in your life all the time. And that allows you to be absolutely normal. Not in a vague sense, but in a very real way that you finish your commitment, your responsibility, and then you come back to your house, you’re with family, and there’s absolutely normalcy in your house and normal family life goes on. So, for me, that is absolutely a day of immense pleasure. And I won’t miss any opportunities to go out and spend time with my family whenever I can.”
How challenging is it for Kohli to strike a balance between two different personas – the family man who strives for balance on tours, and the ultra-aggressive on-field presence who can occasionally get caught up in the heat of a battle, like in Melbourne when he shoulder-charged debutant Sam Konstas?
“It’s naturally kind of getting tapered down again,” Kohli said when asked about his on-field persona. “People are not happy about that either. I don’t know what to do, to be honest. Earlier, my aggression was a problem, now my calmness is a problem. It’s like, I have no idea what needs to be done, that’s why I don’t focus on it much.
“The kind of person I am, the kind of personality I have, yes, I do have tendencies to kind of go overboard. And I’ve never shied away from that. But the starting point is, okay, sometimes it might not have gone out with the right intent, but more often than not, the starting point has been of care. I want this all to be an event that helps my team win. That’s why you see the celebration that I have when we pick up a wicket in a tight situation. Because I’m like, yes, this is exactly what needs to happen. And I represent it like that.
“For a lot of people, it might not have been something that they’re able to process. But for me, it always comes from the right place. While batting, of course, it puts me in a different place. Because I don’t have small, regular events to get excited about. I mean, the end goal is finishing the game. And then, yes, I can represent it the way I used to in the past. Again, things are happening naturally with me. It’s getting tapered down naturally.
“My competitiveness has not gone down. So, I think for a lot of people, it’s very difficult to process how is the competitiveness going to be at the same level if the aggression is not. You can still be aggressive in your mind, but you don’t necessarily need to express it out there every now and then out of frustration, which I have – I mean, in the recent past as well, which is not a great thing, to be honest, I don’t feel great about those things myself.”
Shashank Kishore is a senior correspondent at ESPNcricinfo
