Mahendra Singh Dhoni was the only person who reached out to Virat Kohli when the latter was going through a lean patch.

Kohli, who spoke about his struggles and how he overcame the phase in a Royal Challengers Bangalore podcast, has since returned among runs and last month scored three hundreds in four ODIs. The former India captain ended a long wait for a century with a 122 against Afghanistan in the Asia Cup T20 tournament last September.

Kohli shares a strong bond with Dhoni and said the latter was the “only one who genuinely reached out to me”.

“What is interesting is that throughout this phase apart from (wife) Anushka, who has been the biggest source of strength for me because she has been with me throughout this whole time and she has seen me very closely as how I have felt, things that I have gone through, the kind of things that have happened… The only person who, apart from my childhood coach and family… genuinely reached out to me has been MS Dhoni,” Kohli said.

Kohli shared the dressing room with Dhoni for 11 years between 2008 and 2019 and calls the charismatic cricketer from Ranchi his ‘captain forever’.

“He reached out to me and you can rarely get in touch with him. If I call him on any random day, 99 per cent he will not pick up (the phone), because he just does not look at the phone.

“So, for him to reach out to me… twice it has happened now and one of the things that he’d mentioned in the message while reaching out to me was that: ‘when you are expected to be strong and looked at as a strong individual people forget to ask how are you doing?’

“So, it (Dhoni’s words) hit home for me because I have always been looked at as someone who is very confident, mentally very strong, who can endure any circumstances and find a way and show us the way.

“Sometimes, what you realise is that at any given point of time in life, as a human being, you need to take a couple of steps backwards, understand how you are doing, how your wellbeing is placed,” Kohli said.

Kohli had earlier revealed that when he suddenly quit Test captaincy after the first Test in South Africa in January 2022, Dhoni was the only one who had messaged him.

“One thing I can tell you is when I gave up Test captaincy, I got a message from only one person who I’ve played with before — MS Dhoni,” he had said. “A lot of people have my number and a lot of people give suggestions on TV, but among people who have my number, I didn’t get a message from anyone else.”

With inputs from PTI