Virat Kohli reminisced about working with Ravi Shastri when the latter was a part of the coaching staff as the director after India's dismal Test tour
of England in 2014. The legendary batter endured a tough time on the tour of England, often getting out caught by the wicketkeeper or at slips to balls pitched on or outside off-stump.
Later in the year, India toured Australia to play the Border-Gavaskar series. Kohli recalled Shastri's advice, where the legendary former India all-rounder urged him to stand outside the crease if he isn't scared to face the bouncers. The Delhi batter stated that the ploy worked for him as he finished as the second-highest run-getter, amassing 692 runs in eight innings at a staggering average of 86.50.
“When he came in, I had those failures in England in Test cricket, and I was quite sensitive about it. So he didn't push me immediately. He knew to find a space and to first build a relationship. So I think over the course of the next two, two-and-a-half months, we played a lot of white-ball cricket, played in England, played in India, and the one thing that he told me when we had to go play in Australia, he asked me a simple question: ‘Are you scared to face the bouncer?’ I said, ‘No, I'm not.’ He said, ‘You stand outside your crease,'" Kohli recalled during an interaction on the One8 YouTube channel.
Kohli said that had he continued playing his own way and not paid heed to Shastri's advice, he wouldn't have had the phenomenal campaign he had Down Under.
“So for me, if I was in a place where I just wanted to protect what I know, I would have been finished. So the fact that he straight away said this to me, and I was willing to say, ‘You know what, I'm going to do it. If that makes me perform better, I'm going to do it.’ So I went to play in Australia in 2014-15. I scored 700 runs in that series. I was standing outside the crease, length balls, I was driving on the up. I'd never done that in my career. I was like, ‘Wow.’ It's a level of trust,'" he added.
“He actually knocked me into catching his attention” - Virat Kohli revisits interaction with Ravi Shastri in 2014
Kohli said that the first time Shastri spoke to the players during a team meeting after the Test series defeat in England in 2014, the intensity in his voice captured his attention.
“I had met him (Ravi Shastri) a few times before we actually started working together in the team, and he came into the 2014 England tour before the white-ball series started, after the Test series, because we needed a bit of taking control of the ship, kind of redirecting in a way that, you know, the system is set," Kohli said.
“I mean, he, to catch my attention, he actually knocked me into catching his attention. The first time he came and spoke in the change room, we're of course down. I had a horrible series in England in 2014, and I was down. And when he started talking, I literally shook. I was like, I'd never heard someone, like, you know, give out that intensity of voice before, like in a face-to-face capacity. I was like, woah. And then he really caught my attention in the way that he was talking," he added.
Shastri eventually returned to the Indian team as head coach after Kohli took up captaincy across all three formats. The duo worked closely and not just gave instant results but also groomed talented youngsters along the way. While India didn't win any ICC event during Shastri's tenure, they became a force to be reckoned with on overseas soil in Test cricket. The Asian giants also played the inaugural World Test Championship final.
