On the eve of the first Test between India and Sri Lanka, reporters asked Virat Kohli whether he needs rest in the coming series and the Indian captain gave a brilliant reply.
Kohli, who is one of the most fittest cricketers in the world, said that he also needs rest and when he feels his body should be rested, he will ask for it. Virat also said that he is not a robot and he bleeds like any other human being.
“Definitely I do need rest. Why won’t I need rest! When I think it’s time my body should be rested, I`ll ask for it. I am not a robot, you can slice my skin and check, I bleed,” Virat Kohli told reporters on the eve of India`s first Test.
“I am not a robot, you can slice my skin and check, I bleed.”
He also said that only players and team management can decide whether a player should rested or not, and outsiders can’t understand the workload.
“This is one thing which I don`t think people explain properly. There is a lot of talk from the outside in terms of workload – whether a player should be rested or should not be rested. All cricketers play 40 games in a year. Their workloads are to be managed. 11 players play the game but not everyone would have batted 45 overs in an ODI game or not everyone would have bowled 30 overs in a Test match,” Virat Kohli assessed.
“But the ones who are doing it regularly need to be assessed because the body takes that much time to recover. People only look at ‘oh, everyone has played 40 games`. They don’t look at the time spent on the crease.
“The number of runs that have been run between the wicket, the number of overs bowled in difficult conditions, what were the conditions, what were the temperatures like, have the bodies recovered or not – I don`t think people go into that analysis. So from the outside, it looks like ‘why are people asking for rest, everyone has played the same number of games’.
“But not everyone has the same kind of workload in every game. Only those who have major workload, for example (Cheteshwar) Pujara during a Test season. He will have maximum workload because he spends so much time at the crease. His game is built that way. So you can’t compare that to a counter-attacking batsman, because the workload would have been lesser.
“So I think all these things have to be taken into consideration. Purely because of the fact that we have built such a strong core team now of 20-25 players, you don’t want important players breaking down at important times for the team,” Kohli elaborated.
Vira concluded by saying that there needs to be a balance going forward because too much cricket can cause injuries. The Indian captain said that it is humanly impossible to maintain the same level of performance with so much cricket going on across all three formats of the game.
“That is where balance needs to be maintained going forward. If you have too much cricket going on, with guys who play all three formats, it’s humanly impossible to maintain the same level of performance, what you do earlier in the season. Those details are very important while managing workload,” he added.
