"A team of 18 or 20 Virat Kohlis" - Former India coach's massive statement on men's hockey team

Former Indian men's cricket team coach, Paddy Upton compared the country's men's hockey team to star batter Virat Kohli in terms of fitness and mentality. The Indian men's hockey team thrashed Kazakhstan 15-0 in their final league stage game of the ongoing Asia Cup on Monday, September 1.

Speaking to Mid-day.com after the game, Paddy Upton made a massive statement, saying that every player in the men's hockey team was as good as Virat Kohli.

"Virat, at his level of fitness and dedication, is unique in world cricket but here each player is as good as him. This is a team of 18 or 20 Virat Kohlis when it comes to that level of physicality,” he was quoted as saying by the aforementioned source.

Upton played a significant role in India's 2011 World Cup victory and is currently serving as the hockey team's mental conditioning coach. He stated that the hockey team was better than the 2011 World Cup-winning Indian team in terms of dedication to continuously improving themselves.

“If I compare the dedication to sleeping, eating, training of this team to my time in Indian cricket, these guys are another five leagues above that Indian cricket team," he said.

The Indian cricket team is currently gearing up for the 2025 Asia Cup.

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Robin Uthappa opens up on what affected his relationship with Virat Kohli

In a recent conversation on his YouTube channel, former India batter Robin Uthappa revealed how his relationship with Virat Kohli was affected by the comments he made on him in a podcast.

Uthappa had blamed Virat Kohli's leadership style for the exits of Yuvraj Singh and Ambati Rayudu from the national team. However, on his YouTube channel, he clarified that he did not mean to talk about Kohli as a person and only spoke about his leadership style.

He accepted that he should have spoken to the former India captain before making the comments and considered his sentiments. Uthappa also revealed that he later reached out to Virat, acknowledged his mistake, and even apologized for the same.

"In that whole conversation, the intent was not to speak about Virat. That interview was meant to be about me. I was asked a question which I spoke to. I didn't take into consideration at that point the sentiments of Virat or the fact that even if this is what I believe, he should know what I believe and that gives me the right to voice that. My relationship with Virat was impacted by that. My learning from that was, when I spoke to him, that I should have spoken to him before," he said on his YouTube channel. (1:19:32)

Having retired from T20Is and Tests, Virat will next be seen in action during India's overseas ODI series against Australia in October this year.