For two men and athletes who have never met in person, Novak Djokovic and Virat Kohli share an unusually personal connection. The bond began with a message over Instagram, and what followed was not just a polite exchange between two global sporting icons, but the start of something more meaningful, rooted in mutual respect. They come from different sporting worlds, separated by geography, culture and the nature of their sports. Yet, their journeys feel strikingly similar. Kohli, 37, and Djokovic, 38, both arrived at a point in their careers where they realised something had to change, not just in their games, but how they lived. For Kohli, that moment came in 2012. “I was 11 or 12 kgs heavier than what I am now,” he said in an interview with The Telegraph in 2016. “I had a horrible mindset about training, eating the wrong things, drinking, staying up late. Everything was wrong. I changed everything from the next morning,” he said. That decision didn’t just reshape Kohli the cricketer – it transformed the entire culture. …