The captain under whose leadership, Team India has been number one for 42 months, has been the only captain in the world who has been the captain of the team which won the ICC Team of the Year trophy thrice, who has the experience to win tests on 29 different grounds, under whose captaincy India played the WTC final. He is the first Asian captain to beat Australia in Australia. Have the distinction of being the only captain to win more test matches in SENA countries than any other Asian country. That player suddenly announced his resignation from the test captaincy on twitter which tells a lot.
Most captaincy for India, most matches won and an amazing record of winning 16 out of 40 matches abroad. Even he knew that if in the current season, India will have more matches on its soil, then it will be an opportunity to break the record of Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting and even Graeme Smith.
Virat Kohli scored seven double centuries and 20 centuries in Test as captain. Having an average of over 50 in all three formats makes him great. It’s true that Virat hasn’t been able to perform like that in the last two years for which he is known. His average in Tests continues to go down.
There was the pressure of not winning a single ICC trophy. Before the SA tour, whatever happened before leaving was not hidden from anyone. Chief selector Chetan Sharma added fuel to the fire by saying that Sourav spoke on the captaincy issue of ODI in front of the selectors. This statement was made only during the test series. It is also true that in India it has been seen for a long time that the blame for the performance falls on the captain. BCCI treasurer Arun Dhumal made it clear that there was no pressure on Virat to leave. It was his own decision and the board respects it.
Sanjay Manjrekar said that after taking charge of coach by Dravid, Virat was not in that much comfort zone and R Ashwin said that you have done the work of sowing such seeds which produced a good crop but at the same time relinquishing the captaincy has created a problem. Only those who can read Virat’s mindset can tell that Ravi Shastri was undoubtedly his yesman.
Shastri allowed him to do what he wanted, which may not be possible during the time of Dravid. The fundamental difference between the two is that Dravid wanted to go to SA with six batsmen, even under his own captaincy he had adopted the same formula of landing with four bowlers but Virat`s thinking was different.
On the other hand, raising the issue of Virat’s successor is also justified. Neither KL Rahul is that consistent nor Rohit Sharma is so fit. Both these things matter a lot to be the captain. Even Dhoni also went to make Virat his successor but now this problem is serious.
In the end Anushka Sharma wrote, “Truly blessed are those who tried to get to know you beneath what meets the eye. You are not perfect and have your flaws but then again when did you ever try to conceal that? What you did was to always stand up for doing the right right, the harder thing, always!