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Father's Day: Virat Kohli urges fans to be grateful for the love of their father, but look for their own path

Team India flamboyant batsman Virat Kohli has posted a heart-warming message on his social media handle on the occasion of Father's Day on Sunday (June 21).

Fathers Day: Virat Kohli urges fans to be grateful for the love of their father, but look for their own path

New Delhi, June 21: Team India flamboyant batsman Virat Kohli has posted a heart-warming message on his social media handle on the occasion of Father's Day on Sunday (June 21).

The 31-year-old shared a picture with his father on his Twitter and Instagram handles and wrote: "This father's day, I urge you all to be grateful for the love of your father but always look for your own path to move forward in life. You'll never have to look behind because they're always watching over you whether they're physically there or not. Happy father's day."

Kohli's father passed away when the ace batsman was just 18, and that too when he was playing a Ranji Trophy match for Delhi against Karnataka. But Kohli ate the grief and played a match-saving innings for his state and it earned him a lot of laurels.

Kohli had to go through the trauma as a youngster when he was not picked for a Delhi junior side and that was none of his fault too. His father, who worked as a lawyer, did not pay a bribe for Kohli to get a selection to the team. Kohli detailed the incident during a live a chat with Indian football captain Sunil Chhetri.

"In my home state (Delhi)... sometimes things happen that are not fair... On one occasion, a certain someone did not play by the rules when it came to selection criteria. He told my father while I had the merit, a little extra (bribe) was needed to confirm my selection," he said. "My father - an honest middle-class man who had worked hard all his life to become a successful lawyer - did not even understand what that 'little extra' meant. My father simply said, 'If you want to select Virat, then let it be purely on merit. I will give you nothing extra'," Kohli said.

"I didn't get selected. I cried a lot. I was broken," he said. Kohli said the whole episode had a big impact on him. "That incident taught me a lot. I realised that this world runs like this. If you want to progress, do something that no one else is doing. If I had to become successful, I had to be extraordinary. "And I had to achieve this purely through my own effort and hard work. My father showed me the right way, through his actions and not merely words. Those little things had a great impact on me."

Story first published: Sunday, June 21, 2020, 19:03 [IST]
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