'I started smoking...'- Robin Uthappa's shocking revelation from his days with CSK

Former India cricketer Robin Uthappa revealed some shocking facts from his days with Chennai Super Kings (CSK). The former cricketer said that out of stress, he developed a smoking habit when he was associated with CSK during the IPL 2021 season. 

In a recent podcast, Uthappa said that he was in pain from the inside, as he had to sit on the bench for most of the match. In IPL 2021, CSK was the winner of the tournament, but Uthappa got very few chances to do little as a first XI cricketer. As a professional cricketer, he was prepared for every situation from the outside, but from the inside, he was struggling with himself. To ease excessive pressure, he started to smoke. 

"In 2021, when I was playing for CSK, I was part of the team, and I was not getting to play. Obviously internally it was very stressful and internally emotionally very challenging for me. And when you play for the team, it means you want to make sure that your energy, your value addition, and what you want to do for the team do not interfere. So I was able to manage that, but at the back end I was in quite a lot of pain. So as a coping mechanism I started smoking in the 2021 IPL," the former keeper-batter said during a podcast. 

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He wanted to quit the habit and did that. One day, Uthappa was having a conversation with his child. Neale, his son, read the warning and read the warning on a cigarette packet. That was the moment when Uthappa decided to quit the habit of smoking.

A conversation with son changed Robin Uthappa's mind

"In 2023 I had a conversation with my son when it started off as a one-off thing, and it went up to around four to five cigarettes. So in 2023, at the end of 23, maybe 26 December, I was also thinking, in fact, on 20 December I had also told Sheetal that, yaar, I am doing this, but I don’t even like that I am doing it, but it has become a habit. So I told her, "Yaar, maybe I will quit right now, within a week." I have the ability to start and go off something cold turkey completely. But I have the ability to do that. Where it came from I don’t know, but I have that ability in me," he added. 

Robin played IPL 2021 and IPL 2022 with Chennai Super Kings. In 2021, when CSK won the league, Uthappa participated in only 4 matches and scored 115 runs, including a half century. In the following season, he played 12 matches and scored 230 runs.