Virat Kohli explained that he made a decision to step down from captaincy to manage the workload while his teammate AB de Villiers defended the Indian international stating the relaxed version will bring the best out of him.
Royal Challengers Bangalore bowed out of the Indian Premier League 2021 on Monday, October 11 when they lost the eliminator against Kolkata Knight Riders.
The match marked the end of Kohli’s 11-year-long stint as the captain of the Bangalore franchise. Earlier, Virat had also announced his decision to relinquish the Indian captaincy in the T20 format after the conclusion of the T20 World Cup.
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Kohli and de Villiers had a chat on the RCB’s YouTube channel, where the former explained why he came to that decision. De Villiers mentioned that he’s a fan of Kohli’s leadership and how he has always led from the front.
The former South African captain believes that stepping down from captaincy in the shortest format will allow Kohli to be more relaxed and that could bring the best out of him. De Villiers, who has received quite a lot of criticism for retiring earlier, knows the feeling and stated that it’s not selfish to reduce your workload.
“So there’s a mis-perception in public when they see people stepping down from certain roles to let a bit of that workload go. Where they see it as being selfish, it is exactly the opposite. Because of him doing that he can be a better version of himself,”
De Villiers said.
The Indian captain revealed that giving up the captaincy was on the cards and he had to manage the workload at some point. Kohli added that he doesn’t want to compromise on the enjoyment of the sport and wants to contribute more as a batter.
“My point of view was clear regardless of whether Covid was there or not there. I had to at some stage manage my workload.
It wouldn’t have been possible to keep going on through the year captaining everything – three formats and the IPL.
As a batsman you have to make sure you’re contributing in the best way possible for your team as well.”
Under Kohli’s leadership, RCB made the playoffs only four times and reached the final once. Having no trophies to show attracted a lot of criticism towards him and could be one of the reasons behind the decision to step down.
