Virat Kohli, the batter for Team India, made the joke that tennis great Novak Djokovic is far more adept at swinging a bat than players are at hitting a racquet. He made the clever insight during Djokovic’s recent charity cricket attempt against Australian batter Steve Smith.
Prior to the Australian Open, Smith and Djokovic enjoyed a match in Melbourne’s Rod Lever Arena. The latter also bowed to acknowledge the Australian batter’s skill after being wowed by his footwork with a tennis racket. Djokovic made a go at cricket as well, although he did not do as well as Smith.
In a video posted by the social media handle of the Indian Cricket Team, Virat Kohli spoke about Novak Djokovic. He said, “I saw that clip of him and Steve playing a bit of cricket and tennis. I think he’s way better at swinging the bat than probably we are at swinging the racquet.”
The Indian batter thought Smith played a really decent match against Djokovic as well, but he was honest enough to say he doesn’t think he would be very good at tennis.
The Royal Challengers Bangalore added, “I think Steve did pretty well to return his serve. When you play cricket and you have hand eye co-ordination, you are very tempted with racquet sports. You feel like, ‘ah, I can do this’. But, I have seen tennis matches live and I know how fast those serves are, so I probably don’t have a chance to touch that.”
“I can teach him is how to hold the cricket bat” : Virat Kohli
The former Team India captain said that, “But yeah, it’ll be nice to probably do that with him as well. Probably the only thing I can teach him is how to hold the cricket bat.”
Djokovic had earlier lauded Kohli and said that the two had been texting each other for the last several years when speaking to Sony Sports. They might be able to meet next year when Virat Kohli is in Australia for the five-match Test series.
