Kohli on life as Sachin's successor

Virat Kohli has given an insight into the fervent level of attention he receives from fans in cricket-mad India as the country's star batsman, Test captain and heir-apparent to the legendary Sachin Tendulkar.

Since Tendulkar's international retirement in 2013, Kohli has not only taken over his mantle as India's prized wicket, he's become subject to a similar level of fanatical scrutiny the Little Master became so adept at dealing with in his remarkable career.

Kohli's fame has only increased since taking over the Test captaincy from MS Dhoni after the 2014-15 Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, and he's detailed how the adulation from a billion fervent fans affects his everyday life.

"For dinner you need a police guard in front of the vehicle you are travelling in," the 28-year-old told English newspaper The Telegraph. "Then you need to inform people at the restaurant to keep a table in the corner, not have any people close to that table.

"The main thing in our country is people like to grab you and touch you and feel if you are real or not. I promise you. 

"I clearly remember after a World T20 game in Mohali against Australia this year. I felt people were reacting in a different way towards me, they looked at me as if I was walking in a circular light or something.

"I came out of security in the airport and there was this one guy who came up to me. I told security to calm down.

"He stood next to me and said 'show me your hands'. I held them out and he touched them and it was as if a flow of current went through his body.

"I said 'bloody hell'. I was so embarrassed. I think he thought I was Superman or something." 

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Kohli has been compared endlessly to Tendulkar and the younger man has gone some way to go to equalling his senior's enviable Test record.

Tendulkar finished with 51 Test centuries and a terrific average of 53.78 but after his first 50 matches, the milestone Kohli reached in the second Test against England last week, that mark stood at 49.82 with 11 tons to his name.

While Kohli's batting average (48.03) is fractionally less after a half-century of Tests, he has three more hundreds than Tendukar did, after he passed triple-figures for the 14^th time with a brilliant 167 against Alastair Cook's men in Visakhapatnam.

Kohli concedes that he struggled at first to come to terms with the attention that came with being labelled as Sachin's successor.

But the 28-year-old is now more accepting of the fanatical interest that follows him wherever he goes in cricket's most populous nation.

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"I tried to fight it initially," Kohli said. "This country loves comparisons. The moment I started doing well I was already compared to him (Tendulkar) but it is like chalk and cheese in my book. People come up and have debate and say you can break his records.

"There was so much persistence from the fans letting them know what they wanted from me. I stood on the boundary and all they say is they want a century from me.

"It is part of being a cricketer in India. It is part of the package that people love you.

"I started to appreciate it. After a while I thought these people love me, they want me to do well.  It is just they have a different way of expressing it.

While Kohli has stepped into Tendulkar's shoes with relative ease – in a cricket sense at least – he admits he was as star-struck around the Little Master in the dressing room in his early interactions with him.

So much so that Kohli was afraid to tell the Little Master he enjoyed the occasional drink when he first broke into the national side.

"It is a very Indian thing in front of your seniors you do not want to admit you drink or go to parties," he said.

"Guys were very strict about it when I was growing up.

"(Tendulkar) asked me for a drink. I said I don't drink. He persisted. I said I don't drink. Eventually I said I will have four ice cubes. From then on it was pretty easy."

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