Former Indian cricketer, Sanjay Manjrekar has reacted to the Indian skipper, Virat Kohli’s view on ‘outside talks’ which he feels are nothing but ‘nonsense’. Virat’s made the comment during the press conference ahead of the 3-match ODI series against England in Pune. Replying to a question on KL Rahul and his lean patch, Kohli said that his team isn’t bothered about the ‘nonsense’ outside noise making rounds. He went on to add that the Indian players will be backed and given a good mental space.

Talking about Rahul’s lean patch, Kohli said, “When an individual is going through a tough phase – at that time if you know what things are being said and you’re being told you’re out of form, then you’re bringing in another external factor into your system. It’s a simple game: you have to watch the ball and react and hit the ball. You have to be in the moment and all this outside talk, to be very honest, is complete nonsense.”

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He further added, “From the first to the last day of my career, all this outside talk has been nonsense to me. Who says what and why about a player, what’s the motive behind it, what’s the thinking behind it, it’s better that all that remains outside because we’re not going to let it enter our system even in the future. We are going to back our players and try and give them a good mental space.”

However, Sanjay Manjrekar feels that the Indian skipper must learn to accept the “age-old reality” of “public reacting to a public performance”. He stated that Virat Kohli should handle the criticism with some maturity and calmness.

Outside talk which Virat calls nonsense is basically public reacting to a public performance. And it’s always been the same- Praise when you do well, critique when you don’t. Virat must learn to accept this age old reality with calmness & maturity. Just like Dhoni did.

— Sanjay Manjrekar (@sanjaymanjrekar) March 23, 2021

Tweeting about the same, Sanjay Manjrekar wrote: “Outside talk which Virat calls nonsense is basically public reacting to a public performance. And it’s always been the same- Praise when you do well, critique when you don’t. Virat must learn to accept this age old reality with calmness & maturity. Just like Dhoni did.”

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The first ODI between India and England will be played on Tuesday. Virat Kohli confirmed that Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan will open in the ODIs. It will be interesting to see if KL Rahul gets to play in the first ODI or not.