Veteran England player Phil Salt opened up about his bond with the legend Virat Kohli. He shared a hilarious incident after the side’s triumphant IPL 2026 season. Salt joined RCB ahead of IPL 2025, and they hosted a fan event – ‘RCB Unbox 2025’ before the start of the season, where the players trained in front of fans as well. During the same, Salt revealed that he had unintentionally thrown a ball originally intended for Liam Livingstone, which had hit Kohli on the forehead. However, he believes that was the perfect ice-breaker for their relationship.
Talking about his bonding with Virat Kohli, Salt said on the Super Over YouTube channel: “Hitting him with the phone ball during training at the unbox event was the best thing that happened to our relationship. The balls were meant to either be thrown into the crowd or hit to the crowd. I saw Livingstone at the corner of my eye and wanted to get him. So I threw the ball but it reversed and hit Virat straight into his temple. He looked around and was fuming. I quickly looked around and he was staring at me as he knew who it was and then tackled me.”
“But that was the best ice-breaker because I think he’s so used to guys worshipping him and rightly so. Yet, his teammates, instead of being his teammates, can get caught him in the aura of Virat. So it’s quite a job for him to relax in front of these guys because they are not relaxed around him,” he again added.
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Phil Salt further praised Virat Kohli for his ability to read the game for himself and his partners, where he shared an incident from an IPL 2025 game. He said that Kohli urged him to go berserk early in the innings in a match against KKR, thanks to a favourable matchup.
“It was just the third over of batting with him ever in the IPL at the Eden Gardens. And we scored just 15 off the first two overs. Yet, between the second and the third over, he just said kill him. That’s all he said – Kill him and make this a big over. It wasn’t like we had hit many boundaries but he just knew that this was my matchup. I knew it was my matchup as well but I didn’t know if it was the time to go for a 20-run over. But he knew and gave me that clarity,” again said Salt.
“That’s huge when you have knowledge of your teammates. It’s like De Bruyne and Haaland in English football. You see it in different sports where people build that relationship but it’s not so prevelant in cricket. So to have someone batting with you, who can read the game on your behalf sometimes is massive,” Phil Salt concluded.
