Virat Kohli and Novak Djokovic have never met each other in person, but they are friends on Instagram.

“Virat Kohli and I have been texting a little bit for a few years. We never got the chance to meet in person, but it was an honour and privilege to listen to him speak nicely about me,” Djokovic said on Sony Sports. “I admire his career and his achievements. I started to play cricket. I’m not very good at it. I have a task to perfect my cricket skills before I get to India so that I don’t embarrass myself when I am there.”

Kohli revealed that when he tried to get in touch with Djokovic, he found that Novak had already slid into his DMs. “I got in touch with Novak very organically. When I saw his profile on Instagram, I pressed the message button, I thought I would just message him. Then I saw his message already on my DM,” Kohli told bcci.tv. “I had never opened it. It was the first time I had opened my own messages. And he’s messaged me himself. So first I thought let me just check, maybe it’s a fake account. Then I checked again, it was legitimate. Then we got talking.

“When I got 50th ODI century recently, Novak Djokovic put out a story, and sent me a nice message as well so there is mutual admiration and respect – really nice to connect with global athletes who are excelling at a high level. I have a lot of respect for him and his journey… his passion for fitness is something I dearly follow myself. So there was a lot to connect on.”

A few days ago in Melbourne, Djokovic and Steve Smith were at a promotional event for the Australian Open, where Smith managed to return a serve from Djokovic, who then did not have as much success with a cricket bat.

“I think he’s way better than swinging the cricket bat than we are at swinging the tennis racquet,” Kohli said. “I think Steve did pretty well to return his serve. When you have good hand-eye coordination, you think you can also do that. But I have seen tennis matches live, so I know how fast those serves are. But it would be nice to play tennis with Novak as well. Probably the only thing I can teach him is how to hold a cricket bat.”