Simon Katich, the former head coach of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) has applauded the captaincy skills of Virat Kohli. He also praised his training regime. Katich shared what he witnessed during his tenure as coach of RCB during IPL 2020-21.

He said while speaking to former Australia player Brad Hogg on the latter’s YouTube channel: “It’s a big role captaining an IPL franchise or an international teams since it’s constant meetings, there’s constant decisions that have to be made … It was time consuming and that’s something he was very good with in terms of giving us his time.”

He continued: “We were really mindful of that and respectful of trying to take the load off him in that respect so as a coaching group we tried to do a lot of the ground work with that and then go to him with a simplified version of how we wanted to go about things, whether it was the game style or whether it was the tactics or selections. So you try to help him out as much as possible given the workload he’s on but…he was very giving of his time.”

Howveer, Simon Katich revealed how Virat Kohli did a great job in terms of grooming youngster Devdutt Padikkal. Padikkal as well.

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Katich continued: “We also asked him to mentor one of our younger players and I think he did a magnificent job in what he did with young Padikkal. He’s come on in leaps and bounds over the last two years… Just being able to pass on that experience of what he’s learnt over the last decade of IPL…onto a young player that’s finding his feet at that level but also potentially going to be an international player down the track. I know the youngster was thrilled to be able to be paired up with him…We witnessed it and I’ve got a huge amount of respect for the way he (Kohli) went about things and gave his time to our group.”

Simon Katich also shared his views on Virat Kohli’s training standards while staying into bio-bubbles only due to COVID-19. He also stated that Kohli has taken fitness standards to a new height as well.

Simon again shared: “He pushes himself to the maximum. It’s unbelievable. We played in an era where some of the boys were renown for being religious trainers…Virat’s taken it to a whole new level – particularly the work he’s done in the gym… It doesn’t look like he cuts any corners whatsoever. There’s no stone unturned with his physical preparation.”

He again said: “But I think he also spends time on the mental side of things. He had his wife Anushka there and they obviously spend a lot of time together. That was fantastic to see that him in particular spent time with her given how busy he is throughout the year with the Indian job.”

Katich also added that he was impressed with the way Virat Kohli used to work well on and off the field.

He stated: “We tried to encourage him to have days off because he has got so much on his plate playing all formats of the game. In the IPL, he’s a very experienced player. He knows how to make those runs. If anything, we were trying to encourage him to freshen up when he needed to come into games 100 per cent… He has a huge amount on his plate and not just on the field with RCB – they ask a lot of him off the field with commercial engagements…He does it all as part of his job…I was unbelievably impressed with how he went about it.”

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Simon Katich also added that they are quite fortunate to get a leader like Virat Kohli. Notably, Katich has stepped down from RCB’s Head Coach post before the second leg of IPL 2021 due to personal reasons. Meanwhile, RCB retained Virat Kohli ahead of the IPL 2022 Auction.

“We were fortunate having a leader like Virat Kohli whose training standards are second to none in terms of his level of professionalism. But also his understanding – he was extremely understanding given his role as Indian captain and then knowing how difficult it is being on the road for nearly 12 months of the year. So he really supported that and we were lucky as a support staff to have a leader like that that basically backed our decision making in around bio bubbles and how we wanted to treat the players,” concluded Simon Katich.