India skipper Virat Kohli has credited his father for showing him the right path and making him understand the importance of hard work and effort.
During an Instagram live session with Sunil Chhetri on Sunday, Kohli narrated an incident when he was not selected in Delhi's team and what his father did thereafter.
"In Delhi, sometimes things happen which are not fair. There was one instance where a certain someone did not play by the rules when it came to selection criteria. He told my father that while I had the merit to be selected, a little extra (possibly a bribe) was needed to confirm my selection," Kohli told Chhetri during the session.
"My father, who was an honest middle-class man, who worked hard all his life to become a successful lawyer, did not even understand what little extra meant. My father simply said ‘If you want to select Virat, then let it be purely on merit. I will give you nothing extra’," the Indian captain recalled.
Kohli said that once he did not get selected, it literally broke him, but however, that incident also shaped him mentally and emotionally.
"I did not get selected. I cried a lot. I was broken. But that incident taught me a lot. I realised that I had to be extraordinary to become successful and that I had to achieve this purely through my own effort and hard work. My father showed me the right way, through action and not merely words," Kohli said.
Kohli's father had passed away in 2006 due to a cardiac arrest. Despite the tragedy, Kohli returned to the ground the very next day to bat against Karnataka in a Ranji Trophy match.
During the session with Chhetri, Kohli also revealed that he became even more motivated after the his father’s passing.
