Credit: X
Manchester: Haseeb Hameed went through extremely tough times after being banished from the England side following a horror Ashes performance where he posted six consecutive single-digit scores. It was time Hameed didn’t know what was happening to his game when he reached out to Virat Kohli, whose response gave the youngster the confidence he needed.
“Actually, within the cricketing circle, I'd say, like, Virat's actually been super helpful," Hameed said. "He's, you know, every time I've kind of had any sort of query or question about batting, he's been more than willing to give his time. And yeah, it's not just kind of a short period of time. He's happy to go as long as we need."
“Honestly, I've got a lot of respect for him. Always have had it. But yeah, in terms of what he's done for me as a person, as a player, even through my difficult moments, I think speaks a lot about him as a character and his kind of humility and the way he goes about things.”
Haseeb took Kohli’s number when the then India skipper met him at Mohali after he had fractured his little finger on his left hand. That image of Kohli chatting with a teenage Haseeb went viral and the Englishman is still thankful for that gesture.
“Virat, in that first tour, playing against him, being lucky enough to kind of speak to him at the end of my tour, obviously when I had my injury, he was kind enough to spare me a few moments after the end of that Test match. And he actually shared his number with me and said, if ever you want to reach out, please feel free to do so. That just speaks of what an incredible person (he is).
"I mean, he's probably the biggest superstar in the game, maybe even ever, if you look at his kind of social media following. So for him to be so willing to kind of give his time and personal space to someone, he didn't need to do that. I was a young kid, 19-year-old. He didn't need to do that. But the fact that he was so willing and able to do that was, speaks testament to him as a character.”