‘If someone laughs, dekh lena!’ How Virat Kohli fired up his team during India vs England match

Rohit Mahajan
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, August 18

The Indian cricket team was fired up on Day 5 of the first Test at Lord’s on Monday, when their fast bowlers dismissed 10 English batsmen in only 51.5 overs to go 1-0 up in the five-match series.

A new video has emerged which showed that captain Virat Kohli had strictly instructed his men to make life very difficult for the English batsmen in the 60 overs available to India to take 10 wickets.

Abuse and ‘verbals’ by England’s fielders and bowlers against the Indian tailend pair of Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah earlier in the day had raised the temperature in the middle, and Kohli wanted to make it hotter, ‘like hell’, for the English batsmen.

The intensity of Virat Kohli!
“Koi aisa haste huwe dikha na mere ko, un ke players ke samne, toh dekh lena. Theek Hai?”
In English: “If I see anyone laughing in front of their players, see what happens. Got it?”
Then concludes: “60 overs should feel like hell out there” #ENGvIND pic.twitter.com/OuTmFpp59z

— Aatif Nawaz (@AatifNawaz) August 17, 2021

In a pep-talk in a group huddle before England’s innings, Kohli warned his players not to laugh or share jokes with Joe Root and his players.

A video of Kohli addressing his players in Hindi in the huddle has emerged. “If I see anyone laughing in front of their players, see what happens. Got it? Sixty overs should feel like hell out there,” Kohli is heard saying in the video.

After the win, Kohli said: “As I said, what happened on the field (the verbal wars) really charged us up and gave us that extra motivation to finish the game off.”

Kohli is prepared to keep up the intensity for the rest of the series. Before the Test, asked what it would take to win the series, he had said: “Relentless madness and pursuit of excellence everyday over a five-Test series. You’ve got to be ready for that kind of workload and mental load.”