‘It’s 99% that Dhoni won’t pick my call’: Kohli on MSD’s lesson for tough phases

“I have experienced a different kind of phase in my career currently. It’s been a while since I felt (this) free in the sense how I felt all these years of playing at any level of cricket,” Kohli said.

After taking over the captaincy, Kohli faced challenges at both team and individual levels and during those tough times, Dhoni was the only one who reached out to him apart from his family.

“What is interesting is that throughout this phase apart from Anushka, who has been the biggest source of strength for me because she has been with me throughout this whole time and she has seen me very closely as how have I felt, things that I have gone through, the kind of things that have happened…the only person who, apart from my childhood coach and family…genuinely reached out to me has been MS Dhoni,” he said.

“He reached out to me and you can rarely get in touch with him. If I call him on any random day, 99 percent he will not pick up (the phone), because he just does not look at the phone. So, for him to reach out to me…twice it has happened now and one of the things that he’d mentioned in the message while reaching out to me was that: ‘when you are expected to be strong and looked at as a strong individual people forget to ask how are you doing?’” Kohli added.

Virat Kohli made his debut under MS Dhoni’s captaincy and they both shared the dressing room for around 11 years. He said that Dhoni’s words actually helped him and brought clarity to his understanding.

“So, it (Dhoni’s words) hit home for me because I have always been looked at as someone who is very confident, mentally very strong, who can endure any circumstances and find a way and show us the way. Sometimes, what you realise is that at any given point of time in life as a human being you need to take a couple of steps backwards, understand how you are doing, how your wellbeing is placed,” he said.

Kohli even talked about why Dhoni reached out to him and said he also faced similar situations during his career. “He has experienced what I have experienced right now. So, it is only out of experience, and feeling those feelings in that moment is the only way you can be truly compassionate and understanding towards another individual who is going through the same thing,” Kohli said.

In his career of around 15 years, Kohli has played 106 Tests, 271 ODIs, and 115 T20Is for India and has recently crossed 25,000 runs across all formats.