Virat Kohli has cleared the clouds over his request for rest before a tough South Africa tour and says he will ask for it whenever needed. He said that he is not a robot and will bleed if you cut his skin while addressing a press conference ahead of the series opener against Sri Lanka in Kolkata.
“Definitely I do need rest, why don’t I need rest? When I think of the time my body should be rested, I’ll ask for it. I am not a robot you can slice my skin and check I bleed. This is one thing which I don’t think people explain properly. There is a lot of talk from the outside in terms of workload – whether a player should be rested or should not be rested,” said Kohli.
The Indian skipper further explained the cricket game’s structure per year. He added “All cricketers play 40 games in a year. Three guys who should get rest, their workloads are to be managed. 11 players play the game but not everyone would have batted 45 overs in an ODI game or not everyone would have bowled 30 overs in a Test match. But the ones who are doing it regularly need to be assessed because the body takes that much time to recover. People only look at ‘oh everyone has played 40 games’. They don’t look at time spent on the crease.”
Recently, flamboyant all-rounder, Hardik Pandya opted for a rest from Sri Lanka Test series to get refreshed before an all-important South Africa series. BCCI gave respect to his call and they sacked him from the squad.
While explaining the different workload of the players, Kohli quoted “Not everyone has the same kind of workload in every game. Only those who have major workload, for example Pujara during a Test season he will have maximum workload because he spends so much time at the crease. His game is built that way. So you can’t compare that to a counter-attacking batsman, because the workload would have been lesser.”
“So I think all these things have to be taken into consideration. Purely because of the fact that we have built such a strong core team now of 20-25 players, you don’t want important players breaking down at important times for the team,” Kohli concluded.
Kohli plays regular cricket for India since 2011 and he gets to rest on very few occasions. However, earlier this year, he got injured during Australia Test series, which forced him to stay away from cricket field for the next four odd weeks. Apart from that rare miss, the 29-year-old plays each and every game for the country. Thus, he deserves a much-needed break before the South African visit, where both teams will play three Tests, six ODIs and three T20Is.
