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Virat Kohli, the only cricketer to play all 15 seasons of the Indian Premier League (IPL) for one team – The Royal Challengers Bangalore – has opened up on his loyalty for RCB. Kohli, who has been a part of RCB since the inception of IPL back in 2008, said many franchises had the opportunity to pick him but nobody backed him at the start of his career or had belief in his abilities like the way RCB did.
“What this franchise has given me in terms of opportunities in the first three years and believed in me that is the most special thing because as I said there are many teams who had the opportunity, but they didn’t back me, they didn’t believe in me,” Kohli said on RCB’s franchisee show on Star Sports.
A widely reported story which has now become a part of IPL folklore, goes like like this: Delhi Daredevils (now Delhi Capitals) had the first opportunity to pick an India U19 star from the draft but they went with left-arm seamer Pradeep Sangwan and not Kohli, the local boy and the captain of the side which had defeated South Africa to lift the U19 World Cup for the second time barely a few months ago.
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Kohli was picked by RCB and since then the right-hander has represented the franchise in a record 217 IPL matches, scoring 6469 runs in the tournament – the most by any player in the league.
Kohli was named as RCB’s full-time captain in 2013 and led the franchise till IPL 2021. He led them in 140 matches, winning 66 and losing as many as 70. Before being retained by RCB ahead of the IPL 2022 mega auction, Kohli had announced that he would forever remain an RCB player.
“To be very honest I thought about it. Yes, I won’t shy away from it and I have been approached many times as well to come into the auction somehow, put my name there and stuff. And then I thought about it, I was like at the end of the day everyone has X numbers of years that they live and then you die and life moves on.
“There would have been many great people who won trophies but no one addresses you like that. No one addresses you in the room like ‘Oh he’s an IPL champion or he’s a World Cup champion. It’s like if you are a good person, people like you, if you’re a bad guy, they just stay away from you and eventually that’s what life is all about,” Kohli said.
The former RCB captain said he has deep bond with the franchise.
“For me the understanding that the loyalty with RCB like how I follow my life is far greater for me than the fact that five people in the room will say Oh finally you win the IPL with whoever xyz. You feel good for five minutes but then sixth minute you could be miserable with some other issues in the life. So it is not the end of the world for me.”
Despite representing RCB for 15 years in the IPL, the trophy has remained out of Kohli’s reach. But the great cricketer has no regrets.
“So now when I am successful and I should fall to the opinion of people saying ‘but’ the IPL. This was the case with me till 2018 England tour happened. For four years of my life I was doing well everywhere in the world, the only thing was ‘but England’. So there are always going to be ‘but’, you literally can’t live your life like that and I just carry out doing my own things and I actually honestly don’t even bother about a third person beyond myself and Anushka discussing things and just being true to ourselves and that’s it. For me nothing else or no one else’s opinion matters at all,” he added.
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