Virat Kohli opens up about his struggles with mental health

Virat Kohli is set to make a comeback to cricket when India take on Pakistan in the second game of the 2022 Asian Cup. The star Indian batsman has endured a rough patch lately and was rested for the West Indies and Zimbabwe tours.

Now fresh off a month-long break, Kohli is gearing up to start and will look to find old form at the Asian Cup and the upcoming ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in Australia.

Before his return, the former India captain spoke candidly about his recent problems and how they affected him mentally, so much so that he was completely away from the game for a whole month.

“For the first time in 10 years, I didn’t touch my bat for a month,” Kohli said while speaking with star sports. “When I sat down and thought about it, I was like, ‘wow, I haven’t touched a bat in 30 days.’ I’ve never done that in my life.”

“I realized I was trying to fake my intensity a bit recently. I was convincing myself that no, you had the intensity. But your body is telling you to stop. Your mind is telling me to take a break and step forward.” “. back.

“I understand what Ravi bhai [Ravi Shastri] Has mentioned [about taking a break]. He also mentioned the workloads, the volume of cricket, how I played 40 or 50% more in the last 10 years than everyone else. It is very easy to ignore all these things.

“They see me as a guy who has been very strong mentally and I am. But everyone has a limit and you have to recognize that limit, otherwise things can get unhealthy for you.”

“This period actually taught me a lot of things that I wasn’t allowing to come to the surface. When they finally came up, I accepted it.”

“There is much more to life than just your profession. Or when the environment around you is such that everyone looks only at your professional identity, somewhere you start to lose perspective as a human being.”

Kohli, who will play his 100th T20I against Pakistan on Sunday, detailed how the hectic schedule affected his love of the practice.

“I’ve always been a guy who follows his heart from day one. I never wanted or tried to be someone else, which I have been at this recent stage. I’ve tried to keep up with the demands and expectations, I didn’t really feel my inner being completely, that this phase [away from the game] allowed me to do.

“I was experiencing that I wasn’t excited about training, I wasn’t excited about practicing, and that really bothered me because I’m not who I am, and I literally needed to get away from that environment.”

India’s star batsman added that the month-long break helped him rejuvenate and rediscover his love of training.

“When you’re involved in an environment like that, you can’t see anything. When you walk away from there, you realize what was happening to you. And this has been an incredible break. I’ve never had such a long break, and the first thing that hit me was What I notice is that I woke up in the morning and was excited to go to the gym.

“It’s not like, ‘oh, I have to keep up with this.’ So that was my first mark. You can tend to get carried away with so many lawsuits nowadays. You’ve seen the results of what happened to Ben Stokes and Trent Boult… Moeen [Ali] withdraw from Test cricket. These are not abnormalities, but they do happen, and the people who are in contact with them know what is happening in their lives.

“I’m sure I feel light now, and it wasn’t just about the cricket workload,” Kohli said.

Explaining that she couldn’t show her intensity naturally, Kohli said she didn’t even realize she was faking it.

“I’m a person who wakes up and feels like it’s okay, let’s see what the day brings and be part of everything. My way through the day includes absolute presence, involvement and that is what I have always been.

“People ask me how you do this on the pitch and how you keep going with such intensity, I just tell them that I love playing and I love the fact that I have so much to contribute on every ball, and I would give every inch of my energy on the pitch. and to me it never felt abnormal.

“That wasn’t happening naturally. I had to push myself. I didn’t know… I had become the ideal type of athlete to look up to. I’m very grateful that so many people are inspired by me, but you can’t stop being a human being because of that.

“I understand why people love you and support you, it’s because you were always yourself, and even now, I’m not ashamed to admit that I felt mentally depressed and this is a very normal thing to feel.

“I’m a human being at the end of the day and that should be a thing or a space for people to say, ‘If he can experience this, relax, it’s normal for him to feel this way.’ It’s not abnormal, he talks about it and he talks. with people, no one will think you are weak.

“You will get help from people you never imagined, but we don’t speak up because we hesitate. We don’t want to be seen as mentally weak. Believe me, pretending to be strong is much worse than that.” I don’t feel any shame for feeling mentally weak.”