Former England captain Michael Vaughan has compared India and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) batter Virat Kohli to football legend Cristiano Ronaldo for his ability to keep himself extremely fit even in the twilight of his professional career.
Despite being 37, Kohli is still one of the fittest cricketers across the world. He is still incredibly fast between the wickets and still gives his best in the field. Vaughan credits the right-handed batter’s work ethic outside of the cricket pitch, which includes eating the right things and training accordingly. It is very similar to Ronaldo’s professionalism off the field, with the Portugal forward still being his side’s main player at the rightful age of 41.
This discipline of the Indian batter has prompted Vaughan to say that he still has many years left in him at the top level of international and franchise cricket.
“You look at Cristiano Ronaldo, you look at the way that he looks after his body. I think Virat is the cricket equivalent of Cristiano. I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen it because I don’t think Virat puts it on socials, but I can imagine every morning, he’s probably in ice bath, he’s probably in a cryo chamber. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t drink, he eats everything that you should put in your body, unlike us. He’s not got the diet of the Cricbuzz team. So that’s going to give him at least two or three more years. He does everything absolutely right. So I don’t see him finishing any time soon,” Michael Vaughan said on Cricbuzz’s programme.
‘Nothing left to prove’ – Ashwin on Kohli’s India future
Kohli is enjoying yet another fruitful year in the IPL as he aims to take RCB to their second consecutive Indian Premier League (IPL) title. The right-hander has scored 542 runs from 13 matches at a strike-rate of 164.74, his highest in a season since making his debut in 2008.
He also averages nearly 55 with the bat and has an unbeaten century against the Kolkata Knight Riders in Raipur in a winning cause. At the time of writing, Kohli is merely 12 runs behind the Orange Cap holder Sai Sudharsan.
