When Virat Kohli put his life in danger for his love for mutton-roll in South Africa, reveals Pradeep Sangwan

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New Delhi, March 8: Virat Kohli's transformation from a chubby young lad to a supremely fit athlete is one of the most inspirational stories in Indian sports. Kohli, upon the advice of the then India head coach Duncan Fletcher changed his diet regime for good and turned out to be a different beast altogether.

But before this realisation, Kohli was a foodie and the Delhi cricketer didn't even care about landing in trouble. Kohli's ex-teammate Pradeep Sangwan revealed one such incident when they were chased by unruly guys in South Africa for venturing out in an insecure locality.

"He had been my room partner for seven-eight years in junior cricket. He used to love food, street food especially. He was a foodie, korma rolls, chicken rolls were his favourite. We were in South Africa with India under 19 team, and someone told him that you get a nice mutton roll at someplace, but it's not in a secure neighbourhood," Sangwan wrote in his column for The Indian Express.

Sangwan, who was a part of the Kohli-led India U-19 side when they won the ICC U19 World Cup in 2008, further added that despite knowing the risks the right-handed batsman compelled him to accompany him in the neighbourhood.

"Our driver too told us that food is nice but recently some fight took place around there and someone chopped someone's hand there. I got scared, but he said, 'chal yaar, wahan chalenge' (no biggie, dude, let's go) and he took me there too. We ate and a few random guys chased us, but we just drove our car back and only stopped after reaching our place," he wrote further.

Speaking over Kohli's decision to change his diet regime in 2012, Sangwan wrote, "After playing for India, he came to play for us in 2012 and this was the time he went to another level in terms of his diet. We used to call him 'cheeku-motu' in the team. But in 2012 he came up with a plan where he began to look after his fitness. He began to follow a strict diet. He was determined to lose his weight and wanted to shed a few kilos. He wanted to be a good fielder, he was a safe fielder then too but in terms of reflexes, he felt he was not up to the mark. He wanted to be the best fielder. He liked to bat for hours in the nets and then he would go do some more knocking."