Renowned bollywood actress and film producer Anushka Sharma is no stranger to social media trolling ever since she married cricketer Virat Kohli. The attacks on Sharma multiplied tenfold when Kohli’s bat went silent for a period longer than anybody had anticipated.
The man destined for greatness and often clubbed in the same league as the legend Sachin Tendulkar was returning to the pavilion without making a noticeable dent on the scoreboard. A player of his calibre who would score centuries for breakfast, lunch, and dinner hadn’t hit an international century since 2019. He would have to wait for another 1,019 days for his 71st ton.
Although coach rahul Dravid, skipper rohit sharma and the team management backed the cricketer, many others outside the indian dressing room wondered if they had already seen the best of Kohli. His fitness was never a cause for concern, gym pics were still a staple on his gram. kohli was dynamic on the field, the springs under his feet well-oiled. Yet, when he held the bat, it wasn’t the same focused, run-hungry kohli we all had grown comfortable watching. Something was amiss.
During this lean patch, kohli was under extreme pressure. His string of failures continued, the calendar rolled. His form or lack of it became a mainstay topic of heated debates on primetime television. Scathing headlines ran, some experts wanted him to vacate the seat that they believed he had hijacked, for he was everyone’s favourite. The frustrated fans lost their patience. They desperately looked for answers as to why kohli was failing them repeatedly. Trolling him became the routine. The meme community was armed with staple jokes mocking him, prophesying his next failure. But the public humiliation wasn’t limited to the cricketer alone.
“You are a wonderful wonderful man my love. Your grit, determination and belief is mind boggling !! I have just watched the best match of my life I can say and although our daughter is too small to understand why her mother was dancing around and screaming wildly in the room, one day she will understand that her dad played his best innings that night which followed after a phase that was tough on him but he came out of it stronger and wiser than ever before!” an ecstatic Sharma captioned her post for Kohli.
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