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| Edited By: G Krishnan |Source: DNA |Updated: Nov 30, 2017, 09:09 AM IST
They have come a long way since the early days when I started playing against India. (Maybe) not all the elements of the game, but I think the overwhelming sense of a concept of a Team India as opposed to a broader group of extremely talented individuals. Largely, that is testimony to the vision of Virat Kohli and his grand plans for Indian cricket. He does (things) in ways that are beyond his own batting and which I think is a sort of what every talented leader does. Let's not underrate their support structure because a car would drive only if it has got petrol. He sees beyond cricket and has a vision for the country as well as a part of it, being its major sporting property, something that has dragged the country in the age where the product itself and the landscape of cricket is diluted across three formats of the game and multiple layers including the emergence of the IPL and other franchise competitions. I think it is really testimony (of) how he can drag back all together and still have people coming to play for India.
It's no coincidence that currently Virat is sitting as the fourth most successful captain of all times, statistically. When you look at some of the other great names, I was just looking at them just now (opens a window on his laptop to show the statistics of successful captains with a minimum of 20 Tests as captain and Kohli is No. 4 behind Steve Waugh (71.93%), Don Bradman (62.50%), Ricky Ponting (62.34%). After the Nagpur win, he has jumped to second with 64.52 % success rate) Virat is sitting fourth in the list with a win ratio of 61%. Highest being Stephen at 71%. He is right up there as someone now that has got the capacity to lead well and lead successfully across multiple formats. It is the little things like his attention to detail on the excellence of fitness and training regimen, his expectation in terms of fielding unit and how that has really improved. There is not really any passenger in the field any more from an Indian cricket perspective. When I was playing, there were three or four that were pretty average fielders compared to the world standards. So, he has lifted the benchmarks in areas of weakness as well of which fielding was one. He is also blessed with remarkable grounds and the improvements in the standards of cricket in this country also have been having a direct impact on whether someone is going to dive. You are not going to dive on concrete, yet now there is a (green) carpet on all these grounds. There has been infrastructure that has changed around his time as well.
The actual Indian cricket landscape has changed. I think their ambition to play the best in the world, around the world, is a really positive sign for cricket. You cannot be No. 1 side if you don't play well both abroad and domestically. Virat has got that firmly entrenched on his blue print for Indian cricket moving forward. He has got to buy by the players as well. You look at some of the specialists in Test cricket currently being Cheteshwar Pujara and Murali Vijay, those guys will be working hard to concentrate on their game for a South Africa tour or for an Australia tour. His vision also includes kind of a loose 'horses for courses' type of approach, which I think is also smart. There is a wise wisdom in that thinking. I see a lot of changes and I see at the helm is a very good leader with excellent support staff. You can imagine the kind of conversations that Ravi Shastri (chief coach) and he will be having off the field. They would be very intelligent, robust discussions. They are two very passionate people and the support staff around Ravi as well. You have to give a lot of credit to what I think is a very good appointment to Indian cricket. Some of them are wise, some who know the game well, who know the layers of the game, the impact the media can have. Ravi is a good solid individual.
I think, like every player, Virat has got some challenges within his game that can, and have been, exploited. But still, he is an extremely consistent player. Over the formats of the game, Test cricket would be where he would be most vulnerable. Statistics have proved that and something he will be working on really hard as well. It would have been a great battle between the Australian side that I played in and Virat Kohli at the crease. Like it was with a Laxman, a Dravid, a Tendulkar, a Ganguly, those great battles between our world class side, and we had a side that's probably focussed and disciplined on each batsman. I don't think there are too many glaring weaknesses in Virat.
If I can speak on my career, I found England a really hard place to play for very similar reasons that Virat Kohli does. We both love to score, we both love to hit the ball. You have to have that mentality in England to be a Pujara or a Vijay who love to leave the ball. One thing I have learnt late in my career was to let go anxieties around performances in certain situations. You cannot have it all technically in your game. Sometimes, you have just got to let it go in that process of letting go and actually I started performing better in England because you go through various stages. My performances started to drop in England because cricket teams were trying to keep me out of play, bowling wide, bowling anywhere, getting away from me. Virat and I want to take the game forward. You have to have a completely different approach compared to the (current) Sri Lankan bowling attack, which is a very poor attack. But within the space of 60 balls, he made a 50 (in Nagpur Test). Him and I would be very similar. We don't like the game to be drifting on, and in England sometimes you have got to give the session to the bowlers and that goes against our instincts.
Murali Vijay and KL Rahul, to me, are the natural choices when it comes to abroad performance. Having said that, I have seen Shikhar (Dhawan) evolve as a player as well. He wants to be Virender Sehwag but I don't think he has necessarily got the ability that Virender did, to kind of go up and down (the batting order). I think he is a vastly improved player in the last 12 months in Test match cricket. That's fair. The gut feeling with how and a difficult role for selectors to have as well, but it is a good problem to have. Because how culture driven by performance is exactly what you need. But, maybe Virat's horses for courses approach is the filter that Indian cricket will apply on in taking a call. KL is worth persisting with youth. He will play all formats of the game and I just believe Murali Vijay as his partner will bring him through that, not to mention the combination what I consider to be the most important foundation of Test match cricket and that is the engine room being Nos. 1, 2 and 3, and his relationship with Pujara is special. Those factors, for me, are really significant.
I think you have got to have a chemistry off the field as much as on it. You have got to have a chemistry that gives you that enjoyment when you walk out as a couple anywhere. It is like any partnership. If you can't stand each other, then it is very difficult. That's why I was very surprised when I heard that (West Indies greats) Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes actually did not really get on that well because you spend a majority of your life with that person. To this day, I still love and miss JL's company. Whenever we get together, it is as if we never left. Some of the great friends in my life have exactly been the same. It is not a romance but it is a chemistry, the ability to understand each other, back off when you need to, to be on the front foot and to be consoling when you do. It is all of those things. Slow and steady wins the race. You can see that Vijay and Pujara really click, they both like to laugh, they both are quite intent as well. You see they just get each other.
Very different. That's also an important element. You go the opposite side of the personality within the relationship. The skill sets actually follow that. That was the case with JL and me as well. He was a great thinker of the game and I was an instinctive player of the game, not burdened by too much analysis. Just those so many quirky pieces to the relationship which worked.
