'I was gone, had no belief': Virat Kohli's rare 'won't go to my grave' pep talk to RCB before 1st WPL win

Virat Kohli spoke to Royal Challengers Bangalore before they managed to record their first win of the 2023 WPL season.

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) have had a rather difficult start to life in the Women's Premier League (WPL) but it looked like things could turn around for them in their last match. Despite being in winning positions a number of times this season, RCB lost all four of their opening matches, which has made qualification to the knockout stage a rather improbable prospect already, but they finally got over the line on Wednesday. As it turned out, the former captain and talisman of the men's team, Virat Kohli, gave them a pep talk before the game.

Kohli had stepped down as RCB captain in 2021(RCB Twitter)

RCB need to win all of their remaining games while hoping for a slew of results to go their way to finish in the top three but Kohli said that their aim really should be to give their utmost best regardless of what the result is going to be in the match or in the larger tournament.

"I have played IPL for 15 years and I haven't won it yet but that doesn't stop me from being excited every year. That's all I can do, that's all the effort I can put in every game, every tournament that I play. I we win, great. If we don't, I am not going to go to my grave thinking oh, if only I had won the IPL I would have been a happy man. It doesn't happen like that. Always think about the opportunity you have got rather than how hard it is because there is always a flipside that it could be worse than this," Kohli said.

"I still feel we have the best fans in the world only because we are always committed in every game that we play for RCB and that has been the most special thing for our fans. Now when they see us, the smile on their face tells me that there is belief in our commitment we have towards the team. There is no guarantee of giving the fans the cup every year but there is the guarantee of giving your 110 percent. That is all you can strive for."

Watch Kohli's entire pep talk below:

Having lost five matches out of six, RCB's hopes of making it to the eliminator or final hang in by a thread. With Mumbai Indians having won all their fives fixtures, followed by Delhi Capitals, who have tasted defeat just once, their path to the next stage of WPL 2023 looks clear. Kohli is no stranger to disappointments as under his captaincy, RCB have underperformed more than they have delivered. They reached the final in 2016 before making the Playoffs three seasons in a row in 2020, 2021 and 2022, but it wasn't before they finished with the wooden spoon twice in three seasons and second from last in between. And this is when RCB bragged a star-studded line-up.

Kohli revealed that although witnessing RCB's string of unimpressive seasons took a toll on him mentally, he managed to find a way out of it eventually. RCB are yet to win the IPL title but Kohli pointed out that the belief fans show in them despite their failures show just how important they are to the franchise.

"It has been a challenging season for sure and as someone who has been in RCB for 15 years, I have seen some challenging seasons. I can understand the pressure that you must be feeling. A lot of expectations come in big league tournaments. But I think it is an honour as well, a privilege to have that situation in front of you. We had a similar situation in I think 2019. We lost six in a row and I remember after we lost the sixth game, we had a get together in the evening. I walked in, I was the captain and I was completely gone, couldn't feel anything," added Kohli.

"I didn't recognise myself, I had no belief left whatsoever. I walk into the post-match get together and the first person I see is AB. He walks to me, we stand face to face and all we are saying is, we have never lost six games in a row in our lives. And we had played 15 years of international cricket. So unexpected and unfortunate things can happen. The reason why I am here is that there is still hope. Sometimes a one percent chance is good enough."

Like the men's team, RCB women too have been subjected to incessant trolling online, and while it can easily catch up to a bunch of cricketers playing their first-ever big franchise cricket tournament, Kohli stressed on the need of staying focussed. More than the result, the effort matters, an ideology which Kohli has followed throughout his career and feels confident about RCB women replicating it.

"What matters is what you guys think about that one percent. Even if nothing happens after these three games, the chance to walk away after them with your head held high is sometimes more important than reaching the knockout stage of a particular tournament. Sometimes we only think of the results that we really want, which is short term but these three games can build your character. If you turn it around, then nothing like it but even if it doesn't happen, when you all walk out of the field and you ask each other if we gave our 110 percent and the answer is yes, then what you gain is something very special," mentioned Kohli.

"The results will follow. Reality is that there are four more teams in this tournament, not just you all. Something I found very hard to process in my career out of competitiveness. I wouldn't accept the opposition winning but I realised that they are humans as well wanting to win maybe more than me on that day. I just hope you all can embrace this situation with grace, belief and integrity."