Dubai: AB de Villiers, the real ‘Mr 360 degrees’ of cricket and a close friend of Indian captain Virat Kohli, revealed the man behind the mask of an intense, no-quarters-given professional in the Indian.
‘‘We talk about children and family. We are waiting for that first little Kohli to come. It’s good friendship and we always find a way to talk about cricket as well, but 90% of the time we talk about other stuff. It’s refreshing and in the middle of a very intense IPL tournament,” the South African said during an Instagram live session with Zimbabwe pacer Pommie Mbangwa.
The enduring friendship between two of the greatest batsmen of this generation grew during their long association as teammates in IPL franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore and De Villiers said that he also keeps on having deep conversations with Kohli’s wife, the Bollywood star Anushka Sharma.
Giving an insight into Kohli’s personality, De Villiers said: “He is much deeper than just a cricket player, I think most people realise after a while that there’s more to life than just cricket. I think we all fall into that bubble initially. But Virat’s always been a thinker, he experiments with a lot of things, he loves trying new things out - gym wise, what he puts in his mouth. He thinks a lot about life after life - what’s to come, the different religions, we talk about everything.”
Kohli has played 177 matches for RCB so far and has managed to score 5,412 runs in the tournament. He also picked up the Orange Cap in 2016 edition after scoring 973 runs, including four centuries and seven half-centuries.
De Villiers, who has played 126 matches for RCB, has registered 3,724 runs for the franchise.
However, RCB is yet to win an IPL trophy.
