Srinagar: The star Team India batter Virat Kohli has made his first reaction on BCCI’s diktat of not allowing families with the players during tour.
BCCI had recently introduced directives restricting players’ family time on tours following India’s 3-1 drubbing to Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy away from home.
It ruled that players’ immediate families, their partners and children, can only join them for 14 days after the first two weeks of a tour of over 45 days. On shorter tours, players can be accompanied by their families for up to a week.
Speaking at the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) Innovation Lab Indian Sports Summit ahead of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025, Virat said as quoted by ESPNCricinfo, “It is very difficult to explain to people how grounding it is to just come back to your family every time you have something intense, which happens on the outside.”
“I do not think people have an understanding of what value it brings to a large extent. And I feel quite disappointed about that because it is like people who have no control over what is going on are kind of brought into conversations and put out at the forefront that, ‘oh, maybe they need to be kept away’,” he added.
Virat said that no player would like to “sit alone and sulk” after a poor showing during a tour.
“I want to be able to be normal. And then you can really treat your game as something that is a responsibility. You finish that responsibility, and you come back to life,” he said.
“Like, there could be different situations happening in your life all the time. And that allows you to be absolutely normal. Not in a vague sense, but in a very real way that you finish your commitment, your responsibility, and then you come back to your house, you are with family, and there’s absolutely normalcy in your house and normal family life goes on. So, for me, that is absolutely a day of immense pleasure. And I would not miss any opportunities to go out and spend time with my family whenever I can,” he concluded.