India batting icon Virat Kohli and former captain MS Dhoni share a great bond. Virat Kohli in particular has been quite vocal about his admiration, love, and respect for the two-time World Cup-winning skipper. Earlier this year, when Virat Kohli was going through a rough patch with the bat, he disclosed that MS Dhoni was the only cricketer to send him a message of support after he stepped down as captain of the Indian Test team. Subsequently, Virat Kohli revealed that his conversation with MS Dhoni motivated him to work on his game.

“The only person who has genuinely reached out to me has been MS Dhoni. And for me that is such a blessing to know that I could have such a strong bond and such a strong relationship with someone who is such a senior to me where things are, it is a friendship which is based on a lot of mutual respect,” Virat Kohli said on RCB Podcast.

“It is one of the things he mentioned in the same message reaching out to me, that when you are expected to be strong and looked at as strong individual, people forget to ask how are you doing? So, it hit home to me, it was like this is it,” he added.

On Monday, Virat Kohli put up a post on Instagram about how MS Dhoni is “everywhere”.

Virat Kohli shared a photo of a water bottle that had MS Dhoni's picture used for promotional purposes before writing on the popular photo and video-sharing platform, “He's everywhere. Even on the water bottle.”

https://twitter.com/SonuSin45286309/status/1594576173841145856

 

On Sunday, Virat Kohli took to Twitter to hail Suryakumar Yadav as the best player in the world after the explosive India batter smashed an unbeaten 111 off 51 balls against New Zealand in the second T20I at the Bay Oval in Mount Manganui.

Describing Suryakumar Yadav's knock as one from a “video game”, Virat Kohli wrote, “Numero Uno showing why he's the best in the world. Didn't watch it live but I'm sure this was another video game innings by him.”

After Virat Kohli showered his love on Suryakumar Yadav, he responded to his social media post during the post-match media briefing.

In his conversation with reporters, Suryakumar Yadav spoke about his admiration for Virat Kohli and how the two have developed a special bond, particularly in the last six months or so.

“Recently we played together and stitched partnerships as well. I really enjoy batting with him, but we need to run a lot because he is super fit,” Suryakumar Yadav said.

“But at the same time when we bat together we hardly discuss our game. We respect each other and know how he play. However, I do tell him one thing that you stand firm at one end and I'll continue to play my shots from the other,” he added.

“I'll take it as a compliment and look forward on how to improve further,” Suryakumar Yadav said about Virat Kohli's words of praise for him.

Coming back to Virat Kohli, India No.3 finished the recently concluded T20 World Cup as the tournament's leading scorer with 296 runs in 6 matches. Despite his heroics, the Men in Blue exited the competition at the semifinal stage, receiving a 10-wicket hammering from eventual champions England at the Adelaide Oval earlier this month.

However, his extraordinary 82-run-knock against Pakistan was declared as the best T20I innings ever played by former Australia captain Greg Chappell.

“The Bhagavad Gita is the holy book which is the synthesis of Hinduism. Literally translated, it means ‘the song by God'. Virat Kohli played an innings that was as close to a ‘song by god' as has ever been played in T20 cricket,” Greg Chappell wrote in his column for the Sydney Morning Herald.

“None of the greats of bygone eras could have dismembered of an opponent so brutally without compromising the niceties of the art of batting than Kohli did. It was an innings that showcased the art of batting like no other that I have seen in a lifetime of watching cricket. Ironically, it was also the innings that legitimised T20 cricket as, dare I say it, an art form, more than any that I have seen in the past 15 years,” Greg Chappell added.

“I can think of many of the best hitters in the modern game who could have pulled off a similar victory, and probably have, but none has ever done it with pure batting skills in the manner that Kohli did against Pakistan. Only Adam Gilchrist has come close in the past, but this was even more esoteric than some of his most sublime efforts. It was simply impossible to look away,” Greg Chappell explained.