Is it true that you broke down when Dhoni retired from Test cricket after the third Test?
We were all taken by surprise. My first feeling was: We played under him all this time. He has groomed all the young guys in the team. He has given them opportunities. And now he is not going to be the Test captain. Honestly, I was not able to think that I am going to be the Test captain now, at that very moment. After things calmed down a bit, after about an hour and a half, I went to my room. Anushka [Sharma], who had come to watch that series, was there and I told her about the news. Her feelings were also mixed as to how did this happen so suddenly. Why did he do this?
After a while for both of us it sunk in that I am going to be Test captain of India, not just for one or two games but permanently. And that is when I broke down, because I never expected this to happen. Honestly, if you told me when I started playing cricket that at 26 I will be Test captain of India... no chance. My only dream was to play Test cricket for India. It is amazing how all those feelings as a young kid, playing club cricket, playing school cricket, playing state cricket, all those memories start flashing in your head. How many games you played. How you came up through the ranks. How you came up at different levels in cricket in India. And this day and this moment is in front of you. It was surreal. It was a special sort of emotional feeling that I experienced.
How much do you and Anushka talk cricket?
Well [laughs]... She likes to understand. She likes to learn. She wants to understand my psyche, what I was thinking at the moment. So if she likes a particular moment in the game she will ask what I was thinking at that point, because for us it looked like this, but for you what was it like? She has not followed cricket before she met me, but now she is very interested in knowing and learning about the game. We do talk a little bit, but the best part is, she does not force me to talk about cricket.
Which is good for you, right?
Which is amazing. I can be myself around her. Again, these are things that people do not understand, do not look into. What you do away from the cricket field matters more than what you do during the game. During the game you are absolutely focused on the game. You are just following or reacting to a ball, playing your shots, building a partnership, playing to a situation. But off the field you could be thinking too much about the game, you could be thinking about one particular bowler, you could be thinking about victory or loss. You need to switch off. You need to get away from it. And that is the best way to do it - when you have someone who can give you that emotional support.
Do you talk about Bollywood movies, her career?
I have started to understand and speak to her about her profession, her work. How difficult it is to get a whole movie together. It looks like an amazing piece of entertainment for two and a half to three hours in the end, but to make a film it takes ages. And that is the most amazing thing I found about her profession - how they work so hard and it gets done in two and a half hours when the viewer sees it. That is why they are so passionate about their work. It is like Usain Bolt training for four years for nine seconds of Olympics glory. Can you imagine the kind of happiness and emotions he gets winning that Olympic race which lasts 9.5 seconds, having worked for four years? As an outsider I would never understand how much effort goes into it, what kind of thinking professional people, actors, athletes, have. It is fascinating to actually get to know the person and his/her psyche and what actually goes through their head. It is very similar to a person not knowing someone in person and having an opinion on them or making a judgement on their character. But when you get to know the person it flips 360 degrees.
It must be difficult for both of you living your lives without much privacy. Before the IPL you bared your feelings on the criticism you and Anushka received during the World Cup on social media. What prompted you to go public?
I do not want to force anyone to respect our lives or force anyone to behave in a certain way. That is not in our control. If you talk about a sporting culture, the support should be consistent. If you expect players to be consistent the support should be consistent as well. These kinds of incidents make you lose faith in most people, which might be a good thing as well, because you keep filtering people who matter to you in your life. You become mentally stronger. You have even more faith in yourself, in your relationships.
But why did you make that statement?
I made that statement because it is very important for people to understand how we feel. You spoke about a psyche of a cricketer when he is playing out there in the middle. No one knows what is happening. That cannot keep going on every phase of life. If someone asks me a question on my psyche when I am playing out in the middle I am happy to answer that. But that is a question, not an allegation, not someone accusing me of something. If people choose to behave in a manner where you are burning effigies, it is very important for people to understand that we have families, our families feel bad. We have people who are emotionally attached to us. We are not all alone in the world. We are human beings with emotions, feelings. I wanted to put out there how I feel.
The choice was for you to keep quiet or say it as it is...
Exactly. I choose to put it out there in the open because it is very important for a lot of people to understand. It might not necessarily be only in our case, where she [Anushka] was accused of everything. It was just sad to see that happening, the way people reacted. It is in every walk of life. It is how a certain set of people think in our country, and are ready and willing to blame the woman for everything that goes wrong. That is the sad reality of our country - some people do not want daughters to be born. In some states there is such a disparity between men and women. And that is why all these issues of women's empowerment are rising. It is very important for people to know that this is not the right behaviour. But when these things happen, they sadden you from inside.
*part of the interview where Anushka was mentioned
https://www.thecricketmonthly.com/story/877745/this-is-virat
Kumkum Bhagya
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