Yuzvendra Chahal has revealed that he witnessed Virat Kohli and nearly every member of the Indian team break down in tears in the dressing room bathrooms after their loss to New Zealand in the 2019 World Cup semi-final at Manchester. India, despite a strong bowling effort, fell short of a 240-run chase on the reserve day, losing the knockout clash by 18 runs and crashing out of the tournament.
Chahal said in a podcast, “2019 World Cup, I saw him crying in the bathroom”, adding, “And then I was the last batter, when I was crossing him, he had tears in his eyes. In 2019, I saw everyone crying in the bathroom.”
Difference between Rohit and Virat’s captaincy
While speaking about the differences between the captaincies of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, he said, “I love how Rohit bhaiya carries himself on the ground. He’s a very good captain. With Virat bhaiya, it’s the energy he brings, the same energy every day. It will only go up and never down. Same energy. Every day.”
Kohli has had a good tournament till then (2019 World Cup) but got out for 1 (6), getting LBW against Trent Boult.
Performance not as expected
Chahal, while mentioning his dissatisfaction with his performance, said that it’s a performance he still regrets. However, he had a decent tournament, but in that he gave away 63 runs in 10 overs while picking one wicket of Kane Williamson.
Notably 2019 semi-final World Cup semifinal was MS Dhoni’s last match. Chahal regretted his performance and said, “… I could have done better. I still regret that. I could have pushed myself a bit more, bowled a bit better, and leaked 10-15 fewer runs.
He added, “But sometimes you are in that flow, it happens so quickly that you don’t get time to think. I thought if I was calmer I could have done even better. I gave my best but it was the semi-final, a bigger stage and you have to give your 10-15% extra.”