• Source:JND
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Virat Kohli News: Even the strongest individuals who are destined for greatness, can feel bogged down due to the burden of the expectations from people around him. The same happened with the former India captain Virat Kohli, who in an interaction revealed what forced him to step down from one of the demanding-yet-prestigious jobs in Indian cricket.

Kohli talked about constant pressure of leading India and Royal Challengers Bengaluru for nearly a decade and the relentless scrutiny around his batting "became too much in the end" for Virat Kohli, who says he stepped down from leadership to be in a "happy space".

Kohli, who resigned as T20 captain after the World Cup in 2021, gave up RCB's captaincy too shortly before IPL 2022. In the year 2022, after a test series loss against South Africa, Kohli decided it is time to call it quits as Test captain. A year later, he quit Test captaincy following the defeat to South Africa.

Kohli said he reached a point in his career where the constant attention became unbearable.

"At one point, it did become tough for me because there was just too much happening in my career. I was captaining India for a period of 7-8 years. I captained RCB for nine years. There were expectations on me from a batting perspective every game that I played," said Kohli in an 'RCB Bold Diaries' podcast.

"I didn't have this sense that the attention was off me. If it wasn't captaincy, it would be batting. I was exposed to it 24x7. It did get very tough on me, and it did get too much in the end."

Kohli, who also took a month-long break from cricket in 2022 and did not touch a bat during that phase, added that a time had come in his life when he was struggling to by happy in the spotlight.

"That's why I stepped down because I felt like if I've decided I want to be in this place, I need to be happy.

"I need to have a space in my life where I can just come and play my cricket without being judged, without being looked at as what are you going to do this season and what's going to happen now," said Kohli, who has been with RCB since the inaugural edition of the IPL.