Robin Uthappa feels that star India batsman and former skipper Virat Kohli must be having to deal with “ghosts” in his mind as a century – his 71st international hundred – continues to elude him.
Kohli’s last international century came in November 2019, and while he has scored two dozen half-centuries since then, he has failed to convert any of them in a three-figure score.
Robin Uthappa, who will turn up for CSK in the IPL 2022 after being bought for 2 crore at the mega-auction, has himself gone through the ups and downs of professional sport. Uthappa played a key part in India’s 2007 T20 World Cup win and looked set for bigger things. But his international career nosedived after that.
Uthappa was the major contributor to KKR’s 2014 title win and played two thrilling playoffs innings for CSK last season helping them win the title. In between, though, Uthappa struggled for peak form.
Alluding to the need to have someone to speak on the mental health struggles of an elite sportsperson, Uthappa, while speaking on the show Mind Over Medals. said “Especially with athletes, there is power in vulnerability. You deal with it by expressing it. You find that one person who you feel comfortable with, who you completely trust, and where you know there’s not going to be any judgement. If you feel someone is off, then you ask them ‘Hey, how are you? Do you want to talk about something?’ To have that much empathy as a human being to ask ‘Is everything fine?”
He felt that since Kohli had been in incredible form for the better part of the last decade, when he used to churn out centuries for fun, now it would be difficult for him to live with this dip in numbers. Uthappa wishes that Kohli has the right people around him to talk to.
“I really hope somebody is doing that with Virat Kohli, because it’s very hard for someone like him, the kind of thoughts that must be going through his mind. For someone of his calibre to not score a hundred for three years, the ghosts that he must be dealing with must be immense. I truly hope that there is someone who he trusts completely that he’s having conversations with. These are very lonely battles that sportspeople go through,” the 36-year-old concluded.
