Surreal to lead India in all the formats: Kohli

'Ready for the responsibility'

 India skipper Virat Kohli on Wednesday said captaining in all three formats of the game is quite “surreal” and he never thought that such a day would come in his life.

“It is quite surreal. I never thought this day is going to come to my life. When I came to the team, I was always looking to perform, get more opportunities and build solid consistent career and contribute to the team in winning games,” said the prolific right-handed batsman.

Kohli, who was leading the Test side, was appointed as the ODI and T20 skipper last week, after country’s most successful captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni stepped down from the position.

The Delhi batsman spoke to Mandira Bedi during a talk show after inaugurating a shopping mall here.

The star player, while answering a question on how it feels to be the skipper in all the three formats, said he never thought the path was going this way.

“I feel everything is god-sent. Anything happens to you, happens for a reason and happens at a right time in your life,” he added.

It was under Kohli’s leadership that the India U-19 team clinched the World Cup in 2008.

“Being captain of India is whole different ball game all together. As they mention it, it is the hot seat in all different ways such as the attention, the praise, criticism, all these things come along with it.

“But one thing that comes along is the responsibility and that makes me a better cricketer and a better person as I learn about life through this experiences, so I take it as an opportunity,” he explained.

“The way I came up in my career is interesting. I knew my strengths and weaknesses but people did not like me as such. They were not too pleased with the way I presented myself, the way I was. My mistakes were not acceptable. That always gave me a mindset of doing things my way and finding a way to make it work, as there is no one way to do anything. You can have different ways, you can have different style till your intent is good,” said Kohli.

Kohli said the best cricketing advice he’s ever got was from Sachin Tendulkar. “When I approached him about my game, the advice I got was to believe in your own game and believe in the way you want to prepare and do not follow someone and that helped and from that day onwards, I was really comfortable,” the skipper recalled.