Virat Kohli takes a swipe at BCCI for not allowing families on tour: ‘I don’t want to go to my room and just sit alone and sulk’ | Cricket News

Virat Kohli on Saturday pointed out the importance of having family on the long tours and reasoned how it helps players to deal with the tough and intense days on the field.

After India’s 1-3 Test series defeat against Australia, a BCCI directive was issued which curtailed the family time of players for no longer than 14 days on tours exceeding 45 days. The new rules were drafted after India’s horror tour of Australia, leading to speculation about lack of discipline and cohesion in the dressing room.

“The role of family is very difficult to explain to people…how grounding it is to just come back to your family every time you have something which is intense, which happens on the outside,” Virat Kohli said during RCB’s Innovation Lab summit in Bengaluru on Saturday.

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“I don’t think people have an understanding of what value it brings.” Kohli said having the family around would help a player to recover from on-field disappointments that much quicker.

“I don’t want to go to my room and just sit alone and sulk. I want to be able to be normal. Then you can really treat your game as something that is a responsibility.

“Not in a vague sense, but in a very real way that you finish your commitment and then you come back to your house, you’re with family, and absolutely normalcy in your house and normal family life goes on.

“So, for me, that is absolutely a day of immense pleasure. I won’t miss any opportunities to go out and spend time with my family whenever I can,” said Kohli.

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“I feel quite disappointed about that because it’s like people who have no control over what’s going on are brought into conversations and put out at the forefront of that — ‘oh, maybe they need to be kept away’.

“And if you ask any player, do you want your family to be around you all the time? You’ll be like, yes,” he said.