Former Indian head Coach Ravi Shastri feels that Virat Kohli might quit the ODI captaincy in the near future to concentrate in Test format.
Ravi Shastri on Virat’s ODI Captaincy
Ravi Shastri became the director of the Indian cricket team in 2014 for a period of eight months from India’s tour of England till the 2015 World Cup. Shastri was removed in 2016 but on July 13, 2017, he was appointed the head coach of the Indian team, reuniting with Kohli to forge a cracking partnership.
In a chat with IT, Shastri said, “In red-ball cricket, India has been the No1 team in the world for the last 5 years under Virat Kohli. So unless he wants to give up or if he is mentally fatigued and says he wants to focus on his batting – which can happen in the near future, don’t think it will happen immediately – it can happen.”
“The same might happen with the ODI. He might say he wants to focus just on Test captaincy. It is his mind and body that will make that decision,” Shastri added.
The former cricketer said that Kohli won’t be the first captain who will quit the captaincy to focus on his batting.
He said, “He (Kohli) won’t be the first, there are many players in the past who have had very successful tenures and captains and then given it up to focus on batting.”
Kohli was named India’s captain in 2014, in the Test format, and took over the role in limited-overs cricket in 2017. In the shortest format, he led India in 50 games, second to the milestone after MS Dhoni and fourth overall, winning 30, the fourth-highest overall.
Talking about his decision at the end of the Namibia game, Kohli admitted that it was the right time to step down from T20I captaincy, citing workload.
“Relief firstly (emotions). As I said it’s been an honour, but things have to be kept in the right perspective,” Kohli said.
“This was the right time for me to manage my workload. It’s been six-seven years of intense cricket every time we take the field and it takes a lot out of you. It’s been great fun, great bunch of guys and we’ve really performed well as a team,” he added.
