When we talk about Virat Kohli, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and dressing room stories, one name that immediately comes to mind is AB de Villiers, given the kind of bond they have shared over the years. But last week, everyone was in for a pleasant surprise when Virat Kohli credited former South African wicketkeeper-batter Mark Boucher for guiding him during the early years of his international and Indian Premier League (IPL) career. “Actually, of all the players I played with initially, Mark Boucher had the biggest impact on me,” Kohli told the ‘RCB Bold Diaries’ podcast. The duo spent three years at RCB.In 2008, Mark Boucher saw Kohli’s potential and told him he would be doing a disservice to himself if he failed to make it to the senior Indian team. He took a young 20-year-old under his wings, helped him practice during net sessions and become battle-ready for the bouncy tracks in South Africa and Australia.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!“I just tried to help him in his development at that particular stage. He had everything in his game. I think the one thing we did talk about was the short ball and how to play the short ball,” Boucher said in a conversation on Monday (May 12), the day Kohli announced his retirement from Test cricket.“I think the short ball is something that a youngster always gets tested with. I told him, ‘Virat, because you’re so good off the front foot when the ball’s straight, they’re going to test you on the back foot when you arrive on the international scene. If you play it well, very quickly they’ll go away from bowling short at you’. I just said to him, ‘if you arrive on South African shores, we would definitely test you on the short ball knowing that you come from the subcontinent.’
“‘When you go to Australia, they’re definitely going to test you on the short ball because you’ve come from the subcontinent.’ I think my conversations were just trying to help him find his next level and making him aware of what other teams would do to him. From there, he took it upon himself.”“He said to me, ‘Bach, can you help me?’ I was like, ‘Yes, absolutely.’ I went and served a couple of tennis balls at him, showed him one or two little techniques. I just worked on a couple of things, tried to impart a little bit of my knowledge on playing the short ball, especially coming from South Africa where you get tested quite a bit.
File photo of former South Africa keeper Mark Boucher. (ANI)
“I did say to him one day, it’s not a nice exercise to go into a net and have to work on the short ball because sometimes you do get hurt. Sometimes you get one or two balls around the ears, and it’s not nice having to go through that and getting hit on the helmet every now and again. But I think this is where his feistiness and his character came through. He was really eager to become a better cricketer. He really enjoyed the challenge of me hitting tennis balls at his head.
“We had a laugh, and it was good fun because I think he trusted that it was coming from a good place from my side. I really enjoyed it because here I am working with someone who at that stage I thought could be the next superstar in Indian cricket. He’s lived up to that.”Boucher vividly remembers the first time he met Virat and how the “feistiness” in a young Delhi lad caught his attention and reminded him of a younger version of himself.“He was, how do I put it, quite an easy person to speak to. He was very open to listening to people who were older than him and probably more experienced than him. He had a bit – it’s difficult to say attitude because attitude comes across the wrong way – but he had a character that he was quite feisty and out there. He loved to be competitive, which I really enjoyed about him because I think I was probably similar when I was a youngster,” recalls Boucher.“What did stand out was his talent that he had, and if you’ve got talent and you’ve got character that comes with it and the feistiness to want to succeed, I think it’s always a recipe for success,” he adds.A young Virat made the most out of Boucher’s experience and their initial conversations continued to revolve around cricket. The former cricketer still remembers the chat they had on the art of playing spin, and how it left a lasting impression on Boucher.“I actually chatted to him a lot about spin bowling and how Indian cricketers play spin bowling to try and pick his brain a bit on how they develop from a very young age and what sort of techniques they have to counter the spinning ball,” he says.“I actually remember the conversation that we had, and it went along the lines of, I just said, ‘Virat, you’re very talented and you’re very young.’ You’ve got the IPL ahead of you now. You’re probably going to play close to 20 years of IPL cricket. Sachin Tendulkar started off at a very young age as well, and who’s to say that you couldn’t be the next Sachin Tendulkar?’ I didn’t know that he was going to take everything this far and sort of create his own legacy.”
To mention him and Sachin would be doing a disservice to both of them. I think there’s only ever one Sachin Tendulkar, and I think there’s only ever one Virat Kohli
Mark Boucher
Over the years, Virat Kohli carried the burden of being the next Sachin Tendulkar but Boucher staunchly believes it is unfair to compare Tendulkar and Kohli. He sums it up with a crisp response: “To mention him and Sachin would be doing a disservice to both of them. I think there’s only ever one Sachin Tendulkar, and I think there’s only ever one Virat Kohli. Both of them are absolute legends of the game.”When it comes to Kohli, a lot of tags have followed him over the years. From being termed arrogant to egoistic, the former India skipper had to deal with a lot of outside noise during his Test career but he managed to deliver the results which were never seen in Indian cricket before. It was under his captaincy that India witnessed a glorious period in Test cricket where they won 40 of the 68 games Kohli led in, losing just 17. The 40 wins made Kohli India’s most successful Test captain of all time.
File photo of Virat Kohli. (Image credit: X)
“When he stepped into the Indian cricket team, the way that he led people, I think sometimes people were saying it was arrogance, but I don’t see it as arrogance. I see it as confidence and also a particular guy who’s got a little bit of a different attitude to maybe your normal Indian cricketer. He was never going to stand back and be bullied or pushed into a corner by any other cricketer, which is right,” says Boucher.“No cricketer should stand back, especially if you’re playing for your country. You’ve earned the right to play for your country, and so has the individual on the other end. There should never be a situation where you feel like you need to be undermined by the opposition. If you can take it, you can give it back. If you give it, you must be able to take it as well. I think Virat was very much like that,” he adds.Boucher further explains how that Virat inspired the current generation of cricketers with his “in your face” attitude. The feistiness, fitness and overall dedication have been hallmarks of Kohli’s career and it has rubbed off on the future players as well.
Poll
What aspect of Virat Kohli’s career do you admire the most?
“Certainly, he started what the younger generation is now living through as well. They don’t stand back for anyone. They’re very aggressive. They’re in your face. There’s a line for everything. You don’t want to cross the line or the legality of the game.“But certainly, they go out there, and they don’t feel intimidated by anyone. Where maybe in the past, before the Kohli era, maybe there was a little bit of intimidation that crept in. He certainly changed that and changed the way that any young Indian cricketer being brought up in today’s world, they’re a lot tougher.”
Kohli and his old friend “Bach” continue to be in touch after all these years but the conversations have now moved on from short-pitch bowling to family and fatherhood.
