Opinion: Why Virat Kohli’s IPL performance is not a cause of concern for India’s World Cup chances

Since the beginning of IPL 2019, much attention in the media has been on Virat Kohli’s performances, or the lack thereof. His individual batting and more specifically, his captaincy has come under the scanner.

Some have even gone on to suggest that his failures in the IPL will weigh heavily on him in the World Cup which immediately follows the IPL. The same old debates about how some other members in the World Cup squad such as MS Dhoni or Rohit Sharma are better captains have again sprung their heads.

However, it is important to underline the futility of such arguments right now, with the World Cup just around the corner.

Let’s make it very clear at the outset that one is not saying here that Kohli is the best captain that India has ever had or even the best possible captain from among the current crop of active Indian cricketers.

Certainly, MS Dhoni is a more astute captain, but he has given up the captaincy himself. The other contender for captaincy, Rohit Sharma, may have been a big success in the domestic circuit, especially at IPL, but he has captained India in too few matches to be judged properly.

From among the contenders for captaincy of the Indian ODI side, MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma are the only two players in the Indian ODI side who are permanent fixtures of the team. Of other possible contenders, Ajinkya Rahane is not even in the scheme of things for India’s world cup squad.

Apart from the fact that there is little time left to experiment, one has to also look at Virat Kohli’s captaincy record, in international cricket, and not IPL. His IPL team, Royal Challengers Bangalore, has been consistently under-performing for many years now under his captaincy, despite the presence of some of the biggest names in modern cricket, at his disposal.

Year after year, he has tasted failure in the IPL, only to come back stronger when donning the cap of Indian captaincy. He has taken India to the top of the rankings in all formats of the game. However, among all the formats, it’s possibly the shortest format, where he has not done as well as he has in other formats, though as a captain, he has done much better than what he has at IPL.

So, such debates about his ‘poor’ captaincy as RCB captain affecting his captaincy of the Indian team in the upcoming World Cup is misplaced and misinformed. He may end up having yet another lackluster IPL as RCB captain, but rest assured, come the World Cup, he will be back to his best as a captain and a player.

The only legitimate concern is that of him picking up an injury during the IPL.

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