Teammates recall a prank that happened on Virat Kohli
Virat Kohli is known as the most designated batter for India in the last decade as he managed to score over 23,000 International runs with 70 centuries across all three formats until now. However, since 2019, he failed to register a hundred and his form still is not up to the mark as per his standards.
Gujarat’s Pradeep Sangwan and Virat Kohli were teammates while they were playing for the Delhi U-17 side. In 2018, Pradeep played this year’s Indian T20 League for Gujarat. Meanwhile speaking in an interview with News 24, he shared a prank incident that happened on the Indian batter.
“Ajit sir funnily suggested, ‘let’s tell him he will not play in the next match. We all joined in on the prank,” – Pradeep Sangwan
Pradeep told that they were playing in a U17 match in Punjab and Virat was not in good touch in the last two to three innings. So, their coach planned this prank on him and they joined. He said: “We were playing in a U17 match in Punjab. He (Kohli) hadn’t been scoring big in the past 2-3 innings. We had a coach named Ajit Chaudhary who used to call him ‘Cheeku’. Virat was the main player of our team, and Ajit sir funnily suggested, ‘let’s tell him he will not play in the next match. We all joined in on the prank,”
He also added: “In the team meeting, sir didn’t announce Virat’s name. He went to his room and started crying! He phone-called sir and said I’ve scored a 200 and a 250.. he had scored big in that season, to be honest. It’s just that he didn’t get enough runs in the past 2 to 3 innings. He got so emotional he even phone-called Rajkumar sir (Virat’s childhood coach),”
Gujarat pacer also shared that Virat could not sleep the whole night after this incident. “Then, he came to me and asked, ‘Tell me Sangwan, what’s wrong? I scored so many runs this season. I told him, ‘Yes yes, that’s very wrong!’. He wasn’t able to sleep all night as well. He said, “No, I don’t want to sleep. What’s the point of sleeping when I’m not playing?’ Then, I told him that he was playing. It was all a prank!” Pradeep concluded.
