Over the years, Virat Kohli has been the guiding light for the young players in their tough times. The batting maestro has been an inspiration to a generation of budding cricketers and the youngsters who are entering the scene through the IPL. The former skipper brought a fitness revolution to Indian cricket during his captaincy tenure, while he also assembled a daunting pace attack to rule the red-ball format. Meanwhile, in the IPL, he also took a few players under his wings and instilled confidence in them during their tough times to overcome that phase.

RCB pacer Yash Dayal's father Chanderpal revealed that Kohli supported his son when he joined the franchise last season. When Dayal joined RCB, he was under a lot of pressure because of what happened to him in his last season at GT, where he was smashed for five consecutive sixes by Rinku Singh.

The left-arm pacer was going through a rough patch before joining RCB, which he has often shared, while his father revealed how Kohli helped him overcome it by showing faith in him.

"Virat Kohli has supported him a lot. When Yash joined RCB, Virat would often call him to his room — and sometimes, he would go to Yash’s room himself. They discussed that over [from 2024], and Virat told him one thing: ‘Keep working hard, toofan macha de. Main hoon tere saath. Chinta mat karna. Mehnat karna mat chhodna. Galtiyan karna, par seekhna aur aage badhna (Stir up a storm. I am with you. Don’t worry. Never stop working hard. Make mistakes, but learn from them and keep moving forward).' Virat has given him a lot of freedom and turned him into a fearless cricketer," Chanderpal Dayal told Times of India.

Dayal has redeemed himself since joining RCB and was one of the three players to get retained ahead of this year. The left-arm paceman has excelled in the death-over specialist role for them by guiding them to wins in crucial matches.

He was monumental for Royal Challengers Bengaluru to reach the playoffs last season with his last-over brilliance against CSK in the do-or-die match and defended 17 runs against the likes of MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja. The left-arm pacer had a deja vu moment on Saturday, and the task was to defend 15 runs this time with the same CSK pair in the middle. He replicated the same performance and got the better of Dhoni in the middle of the over and then took RCB over the line.

Chanderpal expressed his gratitude towards Kohli for lending a helping hand to his son during a time when many cricketers failed to bounce back.

"Maine kaafi cricketers ko tootate hue dekhe hai, espcially bowlers ko par Virat ne apne haath se joda hai [I have seen many cricketers break down, especially bowlers, but Virat has connected them with his own hands]," Chandrapal concluded.

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