Virat Kohli credits captaincy for his sparkling success in Tests

What’s the story?

Going into the four-match Test series against Australia, Indian captain Virat Kohli is in sparkling form and he has credited captaincy for his recent run of big scores in the longest format of the game.

Speaking ahead of the first Test at Pune, Kohli said: “Captaincy does not allow you to be complacent at any stage especially with the bat if that is your only discipline in the game, in the field as well. In that aspect, I think complacency goes out of the window as captain. You tend to focus a lot more on certain situations which you might or might not without the extra responsibility on your shoulders and may play a loose shot.”

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In case you didn’t know...

Virat Kohli became the first player to score double centuries in four consecutive Test series, breaking Rahul Dravid and Don Bradman’s record of doing it in three successive series. He is also on an Indian record of 19 consecutive Tests unbeaten as captain going into the series against Australia.

Details

Ever since Kohli was given the captaincy following MS Dhoni’s decision to retire from the format, Kohli has gone on from strength to strength. Not just as a captain but as a batsman as well. The 28-year-old hit his first career first-class double century against West Indies in 2016 and has been simply unstoppable since then.

He bettered his career-best Test score in the two series after that against New Zealand and England. Although he broke the all-time test record for double hundreds in four consecutive Test series after his double ton against Bangladesh in Hyderabad, he couldn’t better his career-best of 235 which came against England.

His sparkling form has meant that he is currently the only batsman to have an average in excess of 50 across all three formats and his hunger for runs only seems to have increased since being appointed captain.

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What’s next?

After winning eight of their nine home games this season, India and Virat Kohli’s attention now turns to Australia, who will begin their four-match Test series on February 23 with the first Test in Pune. Kohli and his side will be hoping to get off to a winning start and extend their 19-game unbeaten run.

Sportskeeda’s Take

While some players struggle after being given captaincy, others flourish. With Kohli, he certainly belongs to the latter category as he has taken his Test form to another level since being the captaincy. After a couple of tricky series against Sri Lanka and South Africa, where all batsmen struggled, Kohli has shown his class by leading from the front at every opportunity with the bat and as he says, captain might just have done the trick for the 28-year-old who looks set to finish as one of the finest batsmen to have played the game.