Over the last decade or so, Indian cricket has set some phenomenal standards of fitness. More often than not, those fitness standards have also helped players push their ceiling and achieve historic results on the cricket field. Every newcomer in the team looks up to a certain player, be it form the bowling or batting standpoint or even fielding. For India leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi, 36-year-old Virat Kohli remains the man he looks up to from the perspective of fitness, even though a 44-year-old MS Dhoni is still an active cricketer.
"I look up to Virat Bhai [Virat Kohli], he is very fit. You can see his aggression on the field and off the field. When he bats or fields, you can see that energy, which fitness brings to your game, you get an extra push from it," Bishnoi said in a chat with ANI
"I idolise him in fitness. I can't go to his level, but I try to get close to him," the star India spinner added.
Virat remains one of the fittest cricketers India have had but is no longer an active player in T20Is and Tests. In fact, it was days before the India squad for the England Test series was announced that Kohli decided to quit the red-ball format.
Questions have arose over his decision, with many former cricketers and experts saying that Virat still had a lot more to offer. As the Shubman Gill-led Indian team looks to beat England in their own den, commentators and analysts have often recalled how Virat used to function in such surroundings.
"Finding a way of creating an event throughout a session to change the course of the game. For me, India has to start believing. This is where the likes of Virat Kohli were unbelievable," former England pacer Steve Harmison said while asserting what sort of the different Virat would've made in the Lord' Test that India lost.
"In a fourth innings chase, Kohli goes and wins the game comfortably. He would have won that game comfortably at Lord's," Harmison added.