India's Test captain Virat Kohli is of the view that despite the number of checks in place to curb match-fixing it will always depend on the kind of choices an individual player makes.
Asked whether enough is being done by cricket's authorities to curb the menace of match-fixing, Kohli told CNN News18: "I think authorities are doing as much as they can to keep the sport clean. You obviously cannot go into someone's room and tell them not to speak to someone in certain way. They can have protocols and they can have rules being set up and that's how much you can do. Eventually it's up to an individual how he wants to go about his decisions. If individuals choose to do something wrong, doesn't matter how much you control them."
Kohli said he is 'fortunate' to have never encountered anything of that sort and would like it to remain like that for the rest of his life.
"No, I have never encountered anything like that anything in my life fortunately. I love the sport too much. For me, to even explain myself for something that might not even lead to anything. As a cricketer, you feel sad from inside to encounter those situations. Fortunately, I haven't and god-willingly, I won't in future also."
Asked about what will be his legacy in Indian cricket, he replied: "When I finish, if I can inspire people to take up the sport, if I can inspire children to say that we want to play sport because we want to be like him, that would make me feel like I have achieved something."
Currently, India's No 1 batsman, Kohli's aggression is a much-talked about topic and the Delhi lad feels that as long as the aggression is expressed positively, sportspersons should have that trait in them.
"This (aggression) is what helps me be at top of of my game. I would not change or trade that for anything else in the world. Every sportsperson should have that aggression or killer instinct -- in a very good way and not in an arrogant way."
He also feels that, at times, in India, a cricketer is often judged by his off-field life rather than his on-field achievements, which he does not support.
"As a sporting nation there is lack of patience in terms of judging someone too quickly. When I came in (to the team) I had tattoos, used to dress up in a certain way, I used to do things I felt were fine and not typically go towards the you know, perfect moral of a proper, you know, sort of a stereotype of a Test cricketer or whatever it was. But it's not been easy and, and any youngster that I see now, coming up, and if people start judging him too early, if he's a bit flamboyant, or you know he's a bit about being himself, there's nothing wrong with it.
"So I always try and correct people that please judge him on what he's doing on the pitch, you know on the field, and, and not judge him for what he's doing in his own life or how he is as a person," the 27-year-old said.
With 36 international hundreds to his credit (25 in ODIs and 11 in Tests), Kohli is shattering records, but, for him, it is his contribution in the team's victory that gives him a sense of pleasure.
"I never connect to those things (records) too much. I have never played for that, but if in process of playing well, wanting to win for my team, I end up crossing a milestone or breaking a record, I have been able to do it, but it's not driving me. I do not challenge myself to break records. I would rather focus on real things. The feeling a team gets to win a game, I want to be the guy to help the team achieving that."
Asked whether Test cricket is relevant anymore, he replied: “It's a very difficult thing to get across to people, because from a fan's point of view, watching the game, obviously, you want entertainment and you want quick results and you want explosive cricket.
“There's a very less percentage of people who actually want to sit there and understand, from a cricketer's point of view, what's going on in the game.
“It's a little journey in itself. Sometimes you play for hours and you don't score 10 runs. Sometimes you have to score 100 runs in an hour. It teaches you a lot in terms of being patient, finding yourself. But it’s up to the cricketers how we play Test cricket as well nowadays to make it more exciting for people to be involved in.”
