How the last three captains changed Indian cricket

#3 Virat Kohli – Lead by example

Virat Kohli

There is a huge difference between good and great players. Good players come & go. As a matter of fact, they are fondly remembered too. But when it’s someone great, it’s said that the great player has graced the game of cricket.

India produced a number of stalwarts. But as of now the 3 prominent greats who graced the game of cricket from India are Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar and now Virat Kohli. Making his debut to the national side way back in 2008, Kohli played some impressive knocks in the limited overs format.

After getting an extended run in the early part of his career, he was inducted into the Test side in 2011. When he went to the tour of Australia many people questioned his technique to play in Australia. But he was quick to silence his critics with a cameo of 75 runs at Perth, still considered as the fastest wicket in the world.

Following that, a century in Adelaide rebuilt his stature from a boy to a man. Alongside, he started scoring runs heavily in the limited overs format. In a particular match against Sri Lanka where India had to qualify for the finals by chasing the target of 321 runs under 40 overs, Kohli scored a blitzkrieg of 133 runs of 86 balls. The target was achieved with 2 more overs to spare. King Kohli had arrived into the scene.

After MS Dhoni relinquished his Test captaincy, Virat was crowned as the Test captain of India. Captaincy got the better of him. His fitness levels and hunger to score runs only glorified after each series. He witnessed a forgettable tour of England in 2014 but came back very strong in 2018 to become the leading run scorer for India in the Test series.

Kohli, a near-perfectionist of the game of cricket has an unsaid leadership mantra, ‘Lead by example.’ He lets his bat do the talking. As suggested by many cricketing pundits his aggressive style of captaincy can make or break a player. Finally, it’s never an easy task to match the calibre of a perfectionist as we all know there could be no other Kohli of the game.

Out of the bare minimum number of failures that Kohli has witnessed as a captain of India, the defeat at the hands of Pakistan in the finals of the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 probably pinches him the most. However, the recent drubbing in the Test series in England is sure to haunt him for a long time.