The Indian Premier League (IPL) encounter between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Mumbai Indians is set to see two of icons of Indian cricket — Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma — go head to head on Monday. While MI are among the most successful franchises in the league, RCB are still waiting for their maiden title. But, the start to the IPL 2025 season has painted a different story, with the Bengaluru side showing a lot more promise than Hardik Pandya’s Mumbai. Ahead of the high-profile clash, Virat opened up on his equation with Rohit, sharing some intricate detials of their relationship over the past 15 years.

“I think it’s a very natural thing to take place when you play with someone for so long and you share so much of your insight of the game initially, your learning from each other, you’re kind of growing in your careers at probably the same time, and you share all kind of queries and questions,” Kohli said in a video posted by RCB.

“So there’s a lot of back and forth that happens and also the fact that, you know, we worked very closely in terms of the leadership for the team, so there were always ideas discussed and more or less, we would end up on the same page in terms of the gut feel of that situation – there is a trust factor and do the job for the team,” he added.

A lot has been said and written over the equation Virat and Rohit share in the Indian team. There have been rumours of a fallout too while many other dressing room stories have been cooked on social media. But, Kohli said that neither he nor Rohit knew that they would go on to play for the country over a 15-year period.

Now, looking back at the journey, they do have quite a few fond memories of the time they have spent together.

“We have definitely enjoyed our time playing together, so we were able to make out careers long because when we were young, as I said, it was not certain that we would end up playing for 15 years for India. The journey for so long and consistently, very grateful and very happy for all the memories, all the moments that we’ve shared and continue to do so,” he concluded.