'Don't look at me as a cricketer...': Virat Kohli's arduous journey to overcome back issues

India's former strength and conditioning coach Basu Shanker, who had helped the ex-Indian captain Virat Kohli overcome his recurring back issues, has now revealed how 34-year-old Kohli become one of the fittest cricketers across the globe.

Shanker who is also RCB's strength and conditioning coach heaped praise on Kohli in an RCB podcast. He said he has been seeing Kohli since 2009 and Kohli came to him complaining about his back stiffness in 2014. The initial training, Shanker revealed was only for 6 weeks, but he said that it was a drastically different training and Kohli asked a lot of technical questions about it.

Shanker who worked with the national team from 2015-19 revealed that Kohli asked him to treat him like any other athlete and not a cricketer.

He told Kohli, 'You have to train like an Olympic athlete' and quoted Novak Djokovic then. Shanker went on to praise Kohli's consistency and passion and said, 'Even today, he comes to the gym whether he is performing or not but the zeal, the zest, the extraordinary passion towards excellence is mind-boggling.'