MUMBAI: Virat Kohli revealed on Monday that sage advice from India great Sachin Tendulkar after a disastrous tour of England two years ago helped turn him into world cricket’s top batsman.

He said he spoke to Tendulkar, regarded by many as the greatest batsman ever, and attributed some of the turn-around in his form to what the former India captain had to say.

“The best advice was not to read or look up things that were being said about me. I’m not joking or trying to be sarcastic. That was the best advice I got,” said Kohli.

“That was one thing that kept pulling me back as far as Test cricket is concerned,” added Kohli, who succeeded Mahendra Singh Dhoni as captain early last year.

“Being captain took my mind more off those things because I had absolutely no time to read up or hear what people had to say about me.

“It was all about thinking about what the team has to do and that has helped me immensely to stay focused on what I have to do on the field,” said the star batsman.

Kohli climbed to a career-best second place in the Test rankings on Tuesday after his third double century.

Kohli, who is in the form of his life after striking his third double ton of the year, jumped a place in the Test table and is in line to top the rankings in all three forms of the game. Kohli has been the standout batsman of 2016, amassing more than 1,000 runs in Test cricket for the year and bringing the total for his career to more than 4,000.

He is just 11 points behind Australia captain Steve Smith in the International Cricket Council Test ratings.

Published in Dawn December 14th, 2016