Virat Kohli on his second day out at RCB had batted in the nets, taken a few high catches before moving on to slip catching practice. Oh, did we mention he scored a stunning goal before the serious cricket even started? The sofa sets from the previous season had made way to the grass outfields as he sat down for an interview with Danish Sait after finishing practice. King Kohli seemed relaxed.

Unburdened from his captaincy responsibilities after almost a decade, asked how it feels, Virat Kohli said “It’s a good change; I’m much more relaxed. The same excitement of coming to practice and just focusing on my skills and what I need to do as a batter, looking forward to these sessions is something that I used to experience very regularly before. Not that you don’t focus on it, but somewhere when you have other responsibilities, that tends to kind of take a backseat, and over a period of time when you do it over and over again, and your mind is only running in one direction, then you can tend to lose that joy to come and practice. For me, that’s always been the essence of playing cricket and something that I’ve always wanted for it to be alive within me. And I certainly feel that joy of purely coming here and hitting the ball again.”

Asked if he feels younger and brighter not being the captain, “I see it from a very different point of view. When you take a decision like this, a lot of people go, ‘One should look at things from a point of responsibility and you have to take responsibility.’ And people don’t understand that if you as a player cannot be the best version of yourself on the field, then that responsibility for me personally as a player means nothing,” said Virat Kohli

Elaborating further, he explained how the decision would help the team and himself personally, saying, “You can still be a leader within the team, drive the team forward towards success and winning trophies and titles, but I take a lot of pride in contributing for the team. If something, I feel, is pushing that joy down, that fun factor of just playing cricket, and just looking forward to doing something special on the field, if anything is coming in between that, and having the knowledge that you do have people who have able minds to be able to take the team forward, then I think it’s a wise thing for anyone to create some space for themselves, just take a deep breath and restructure things and say ‘Hold on, I might not have looked at a lot of things that I need to work on, and here’s a chance for me to restructure, rethink about what I want to do’, and just find things to improve, find little bit at practice something that you look forward to. That is something I’ve experienced in this phase.”

Despite passing on the captaincy baton to Faf du Plessis, Virat Kohli will be a huge part of the leadership group at RCB.