”People in This Day and Age Don’t Bother Finding Out the Truth”: Virat Kohli on Targetting Anushka Sharma

India captain Virat Kohli said on Saturday that how he goes to isolated places like the mountains in Bhutan to escape from his daily cricket schedule, as well as, intense social media spotlight as he is married to Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma. He added that the escapes are the only way for them to have their “own space”. They were in Bhutan to celebrate Kohli’s 31st birthday in early November.

“We loved going to treks and interacting with people. On a daily basis you don’t get to interact with people,” Virat Kohli told India Today TV. “There we would go on bike rides and in between meet some local people and talk to them. It was beautiful, it was like getting back to being human beings before we became famous.”

Virat Kohli said there has been a “drastic change” in the last four years as his fame has grown up with social media too. He said that earlier people used to respect their spaces but things have changed now.

“From 2015 onwards my career grew and social media was also growing simultaneously. It gets difficult understanding this transition that’s why we like being in our own space all the time,” he said.

Virat Kohli further referred to his wife was a “soft target” for criticism as people criticised her a lot for Kohli’s poor form with the bat.

“Some of the things that come out are really funny. Without actually checking with anyone people come to conclusions. The lies are spoken so much they start becoming truth,” said Kohli. “People in this day and age don’t bother finding out the truth when someone’s a soft target like her. We don’t get hurt by it but we need to explain to people what the truth is.”

He was also surprised by the allegations during the ICC World Cup in England in July and he further said that dragging her name was not right.

“She came for one World Cup game against Sri Lanka and the family box and the selector box was different, and there was no selector in that box. She came with two friends. As I said, she is known, she’s been successful at a very high level so when people take her name, it gets noticed,” Kohli concluded.