'A Lot Of Coaches Are Afraid': Former India Coach Reveals Conversation With Virat Kohli Before His Test Retirement

Ryan ten Doeschate revealed that he stepped in to speak to Virat Kohli during India’s tour of Australia after Kohli kept falling to the same shot outside off stump. The former India assistant coach said he waited until the fourth Test and chose a rain break for the conversation because both the timing and the wording mattered.

Kohli had a difficult run on that tour, repeatedly getting out while driving deliveries outside the off stump. As that pattern persisted, questions grew over whether India’s coaching staff was doing enough to address it.

Speaking on the talkSPORT Cricket podcast, ten Doeschate said he had been weighing the issue for some time before approaching Kohli. He said the exchange showed how hard it can be for coaches to offer technical advice to a senior player without unsettling him or making the intervention sound confrontational.

Coaches Fear Intervening

Ten Doeschate said the growing influence of players has made many coaches wary of stepping in, even when a flaw is obvious.

“I think a lot of coaches are afraid to make interventions because it can be seen that you are, you know, trying to justify your job, or you're interfering, or just saying things for the sake of saying it,” ten Doeschate said on the talkSPORT Cricket podcast.

“You've got to strike the balance of making an intervention that's going to help the player, or confusing them,” he said.

He said the risk rises further when the player is someone like Kohli. “But my sense is, for a coach to go to a player like Virat Kohli and intervene and almost call them out on what's happening can be dangerous for you as a coach. And I think getting the wording right around that and how you deliver it is so important.” He added: “The way the power shift has moved towards the players in the modern era does mean that a lot of coaches are scared to bring up topics or at least get talking about it.”

How Kohli Responded

Ten Doeschate said he did not want to hold back just because of how a player might react. He eventually raised the issue during the fourth Test after Kohli’s dismissals kept following the same pattern.

“I never want to be a coach who is scared of an opinion of someone else for stepping in, for saying the right thing. I actually was just telling a really great story about Virat and the troubles he had in Australia with driving the ball and nicking off. Eventually, in the fourth Test, I went to intervene and chat to him. And he was brilliant about it! And he actually wanted someone to chat to him,” he said.

The former Netherlands all-rounder said he had a decent relationship with Kohli and that helped. He also said the repeated mode of dismissal stood out.

“In that situation, it had been bubbling away, and it was more a case of me building up the courage and delivering it in the right way. I was lucky enough to have a decent relationship with Virat. He's obviously not someone who needs a lot of coaching, and that was one thing that really stuck out-the manner of the dismissal being so same-same,” he said.

Kohli, he said, did not treat the exchange as a lecture. “You don't have to agree. You might say, 'I want to drive on the up for these reasons,' and that's actually what happened with Virat. He really explained why he wanted to play in the way he played, and then you can tweak around that,” ten Doeschate said.

Timing And Technique

Ten Doeschate said a coach can easily plant doubt in a batter’s mind if technical advice comes at the wrong moment.

“There's always a risk that you sort of unsettle his frame of mind. You know, he might be in a really good place, and now you say, 'You know, I've noticed when you're pulling... you're just taking your eye off the ball.' Technically, you might want him to watch the ball a little bit longer, but now all of a sudden he's thinking about pulling, and he's got to go out and face Mitchell Starc. So that's not the time to do it,” he said.

That is why he waited. “So I had thought about it a lot, and I thought how I could deliver it. You know, I'm not going to go to him and say, 'Mate, you've got cover drives all over the show.' But I then worked out a time-it was during a rain break-where I could deliver it in quite a non-confrontational way. And credit to him, the way he took it on ended up being a really great discussion,” he said.

The discussion, however, did not change the series outcome late on. “Unfortunately, it didn't deliver the results we wanted towards the back end of the series, but you know, I'd say if you can deliver it to someone like him, you can deliver it to anyone. Just finding the right way of dropping your message is really important,” he added.