When Virat Kohli was pranked by India teammates as he met Sachin Tendulkar for the first time
Virat Kohli is arguably one of the best batters India has produced across formats. And like many cricketers, the god of cricket Sachin Tendulkar was his idol growing up.
Ahead of his international debut in 2008, when a young Kohli walked into the Indian team for the very first time, he was nervous about interacting with someone he had worshipped and looked up to.
The Indian team at that point was known to have a number of pranksters in the dressing room, who just wanted an opportunity to have a bit of fun. So after realizing that Kohli was too nervous to meet Tendulkar, the likes of Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, and Munaf Patel got together and planned a prank on him.
Virat Kohli was asked to take blessings of Sachin Tendulkar
In a recent video posted by Sportskeeda on their YouTube channel, the story was narrated on the show, 'SK Tales'. This group of players went to Kohli and stated that it was compulsory for a new member of the Indian team to bend down before Tendulkar and touch his feet to take his blessings.
They also told the youngster that once Tendulkar gives his blessings, there is no reason why the youngster can't be successful. Virat Kohli fell right into the trap and believed that it was a tradition to touch Tendulkar's feet for blessings.
He kept sitting in the dressing room in awe of Tendulkar. After gauging the right moment, Kohli went ahead and tried to touch Tendulkar's feet. But the Little Master immediately stopped him and asked him whether he had been told to do so.
Virat Kohli has scored 43 ODI centuries and is only behind Sachin Tendulkar in the list of Most centuries in ODIS. Kohli has scored 12311 runs in ODIS at an average of 58.07. He has scored 43 hundred and 64 fifties with a high score of 183. https://t.co/q1lG4zKgao
Kohli told him the truth and both burst out laughing. It was perhaps the breaking of ice, which was needed to make the youngster comfortable around the great man.
In terms of becoming India's modern day great, Virat Kohli definitely seems to have taken the baton from Tendulkar.