Ahmedabad: Royal Challengers Bengaluru head coach Andy Flower said the franchise is ‘very lucky’ to have veteran batter Virat Kohli in the dressing room, hailing the former skipper’s hunger and drive as ‘genuinely inspiring’ after RCB defended their Indian Premier League at the Narendra Modi Stadium.
“You asked about Virat’s hunger and how that affects him. When I was in the dressing room last night after the game, I mentioned it actually. His hunger and drive it’s genuinely inspiring. Even for older blokes like me, seeing someone as hungry and driven, as disciplined and as ambitious as he still is, it’s wonderful to witness. And we’re very lucky to have him in the dressing room.
“He sets certain standards, like standards of intensity in the field, for instance, that means that anyone falling below those is going to stand out like a sore thumb. So we don’t need coaches driving intensity on standards in the field, for instance, because he’s living it and doing it. And everyone else has to raise their games to get anywhere near it,” Flower said in a virtual press conference on Monday.
The former Zimbabwe captain, who coached England to the 2010 Men’s T20 World Cup title win, added, “He works hard at his game, but you can see that he loves it as well. He loves batting. He loves hitting a ball. He loves the feeling of the ball meeting the middle of the bat. I would imagine the craft and mastery that he feels when he’s got a bat in his hands. Again, those standards are easy for people in our training sessions to see, and certainly it just helps everyone head in the right direction.” IANS