After hitting his 28th IPL half-century at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Saturday, Virat Kohli thought that taking regular breaks from the game helped him stay mentally fresh and prevent burnout.
In the tournament opener, RCB easily defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by six wickets thanks to his effort.
Despite playing his first T20 game since the IPL final last year, Kohli demonstrated that taking regular breaks from the game has been essential to sustaining peak performance with a 38-ball-69 with five sixes and an equal amount of boundaries.
When asked if he could be ill-prepared given that he hasn’t played Twenty20 cricket in ten months, Kohli responded: “Well, you know, the kind of scheduling that we’ve had over the last 15 years and the amount of cricket I’ve played, for me there was always a risk of getting burnt out rather than being undercooked. So these breaks helped me immensely. I stay fresh, I stay excited.”
The 37-year-old emphasized that he never returns competitive cricket until he is fully recovered.
“Whenever I come back to play, it’s 120%. I’m not coming back, you know, underprepared. In fact, the extra rest helps me to mentally freshen up. As long as you’re physically fit and you’re excited mentally, all those things come together nicely and then you’re able to, you know, contribute for the team’s cause and that’s what you want to do as a player. You don’t want to hold on to a spot. You want to keep performing and, you know, keep putting in the work for the team,” he added.
Kohli added that despite a lapse in the shortest format, his recent white-ball matches had helped him maintain rhythm when he returned to T20 cricket.
“It was good to get back out there. You mentioned T20 cricket. The last game I played was the final last year but I think the way I batted in the one-day series quite recently really helped me to stay in that same kind of momentum.
“I wasn’t playing shots that I don’t usually play so I knew as long as I have the rhythm and I’ve put enough work physically behind the scenes with my fitness, things should come together nicely and tonight was another chance to start strong and to build on this,” he said.
