The 42-year-old former Indian wicket-keeper batsman Deep Dasgupta has recently praised the 31-year-old Indian captain Virat Kohli for maintaining his incredible fitness. Dasgupta feels that disciplined Kohli can play the game until his early 40s.
Virat Kohli is one of the most consistent performers with the bat in international cricket for a long time. He is currently the top-ranked ODI batsman, second-ranked Test batsman and tenth-ranked T20I batsman. The right-handed batsman, who made his international debut in 2008, is now aggressively approaching to break many long-standing batting records, including holding the record of most runs in T20I history.
Apart from his batting, Kohli has also been regularly praised for his outstanding captaincy and extreme fitness. Deep Dasgupta is impressed with Kohli’s disciplined fitness in the early 30s. While it is very hard for many players to maintain the fitness to continue the big cricket career until the early 40s, Dasgupta feels that Kohli can show this incredible stamina.
During a recent Instagram live session with Sportskeeda, Dasgupta said, “He (Virat Kohli) is physically extremely fit. He is very disciplined He is in his early 30s, so he can basically go on for maybe five, six, or maybe even 10 years and play till he is 40. He has got a structure, both mentally and physically, that can propel him to play till his early 40s. More than the physical side, it is the mental side of it He is such an intense kind of a person. When he is in it, he is in it.”
Deep Dasgupta has only one concern about Virat Kohli
However, Dasgupta has only one concern in this programme, and that is Kohli’s mental freshness. While Dasgupta is very confident about Kohli’s physical fitness, he isn’t sure how Kohli will maintain his mental freshness in the near future.
Dasgupta added, “My only issue or the thing I am concerned about is, can he be fresh, mentally. What I have noticed over the years is that people who are so intense, they tend to kind of burn out a little early or be fatigued mentally. It might not be physically but mentally.”
While a very few players have maintained their international cricket till the early 40s, the number is going downwards with the time progress. Since 2000, Sachin Tendulkar was the only Indian cricketer till the date, who continued the international cricket till the early 40s.