Anil Kumble lauds 'matured' Team India skipper Virat Kohli

Former Team India head coach Anil Kumble has lauded Virat Kohli and labeled the Indian skipper as a "matured" leader of his young side.

"I think we saw that Virat with his 5th year into leadership, he has obviously matured," Kumble was quoted as saying by CricketNext.

"You could see a lot more consistent selection in the team and whenever the team was in trouble he was the one who put his hand up and delivered on most occasions."

Under Kohli's leadership, the 'Men In Blue' reached the semi-final of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 in UK back in July.

Team India are also comfortably sitting at the top of the World Test Championship (WTC) points table.

"It was his first World Cup (as captain earlier this year), let's not forget although he has been captain for the Indian team for a while now but it was his first World cup. But otherwise, I think overall his leadership has been really good and we have seen that, this time around against West Indies, India was pushed but they came up out on top, both in the T20 format, in the decider and also in the ODI format."

"So, it’s been wonderful to his growth as captain and I think in the Test format, I think India is very comfortable with the template that they have, of the batsmen that they have and the bowling attack that they have."

The ex-Indian cricketer also claimed that Virat is a much better Test captain simply because he knows the players he can depend on.

"I feel that Virat is a lot more comfortable captaining in a much Test captain because he knows exactly the performers that he can depend on." 

"He needs to find that especially in the T20 format, in the ODI format I think he has more or less sort of understood how each one performs but in the T20 format he needs that to happen," Kumble said. 

"So, India has almost 15 matches prior to the start of the World Cup, I am hopeful that he'll be able to figure that out in the 15-16 games prior to the World Cup."

"Otherwise I think he has been brilliant as a captain and as a team we probably had one of the best years in Indian cricket," he added.