Kohli had talent but was not operating in the best version, Kirsten recalls first meeting with Virat

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XtraTime Web Desk: Former World Cup winning coach of India, Gary Kirsten felt Virat Kohli was not operating in the right manner when he first met him. The former South African opener met Kohli for the first time after being appointed as the Head Coach of the Indian team in 2008, during the same time when Kohli was taking his first steps in international cricket. In a recent You Tube chat show, Kirsten recalled his first meeting with Kohli.

“When I met Virat first up, he had great abilities and talent and he was a young guy. But I kind of knew straight away that he wasn’t operating in the best version of himself. So we had a number of discussions,” said Kirsten in The RK show on You Tube.

The relationship between Kirsten and Kohli grew with the passage of time. The former was also the coach of Virat Kohli led Royal Challengers Bangalore.

“Our relationship was formulated around him as a young player coming in, and me trying to say to him that he has a long way to go and to build in some consistent behaviors into the way he played this game.”

The 52 year old Kirsten also recalled the discussion he had with Kohli during the ODI series in Sri Lanka, following which the later scored his maiden ton in international cricket. In the previous match Kohli threw away his wicket after getting a start which somewhat annoyed Kirsten. He had a long chat with Virat following the match emphasizing the need to change his temperament. Kohli made sure that he didn’t repeat the mistake eventually going past the 100-run mark for the first time at the highest level. “I’ll never forget one when we were playing an ODI series against Sri Lanka, and he was batting beautifully and he was on 30-odd not out. He then decided that he would try and hit the (bowler) over long-on’s head for six. And he got holed out.

He added,“I just said to him, ‘If you’re going to take your cricket to the next level, you need to hit that ball down the ground for one. You know you can hit a lot of balls up the ground, but there’s a lot of risk attached to that.’ I think he took that on board, he got a hundred in the next one-day in Kolkata.”

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