'He is a leader': Krunal Pandya reveals Virat Kohli's impact on RCB dressing room

NEW DELHI: The specified beingness of Virat Kohli successful the dressing country is capable to assistance standards. His intensity, enactment ethic and never-say-die cognition to triumph person agelong made him the heartbeat of Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and IPL 2026 was nary different.

Kohli played a pivotal relation successful RCB's 2nd consecutive IPL rubric triumph, finishing arsenic the franchise's highest run-scorer and the fourth-highest wide successful the tournament. The batting superstar scored 675 runs successful 16 matches astatine an mean of 56.25 and a onslaught complaint of 165.85, including a match-winning 75 successful the last against Gujarat Titans.

RCB all-rounder Krunal Pandya, who was portion of the franchise's back-to-back title-winning campaigns successful 2025 and 2026, spoke astatine magnitude astir Kohli's power connected the squad and his ain vocation during an enactment arsenic Guest Sports Editor astatine The Times of India.Asked astir Kohli's interaction connected the group, peculiarly erstwhile it comes to fittingness and motivation, Krunal said the erstwhile India skipper inspires everyone simply by the mode helium conducts himself."He leads by example. The hunger helium inactive has to execute and triumph is inspiring. Sometimes radical get satisfied aft 1 oregon 2 successes, but past you spot idiosyncratic who has made excellence a habit. You tin inactive spot his emotion for the game. If that emotion and hunger stay constant, the entity is the limit."Krunal pointed to Kohli's effect to adversity during IPL 2026 arsenic an illustration of the champion mindset that has defined his career.

"After 11 games this season, helium had 2 ducks and radical asked maine whether we were worried. I told them I was excited. He had 2 back-to-back zeros and past went retired and scored a match-winning hundred. He inspires radical successful the dressing country and extracurricular it done his actions," helium said.For Krunal, Kohli's competitory tone and obsession with winning person besides served arsenic a root of idiosyncratic inspiration.When asked whether Kohli had influenced him personally, the all-rounder replied: "One 100 per cent. I americium besides idiosyncratic who plays assertive cricket and loves winning. That doesn’t mean I americium a graceful loser, but I emotion winning.""We person similarities successful the mode we attack the game. Over the years, I person spent a batch of clip with him. Sharing a dressing country with him has been special. He is simply a person successful each consciousness of the word. There is nary uncertainty astir that," helium said.