AUS v IND 2018-19: Virat's attitude towards Tests important for world cricket, says Greg Chappell

The Indian captain has regularly expressed his love for game's best format.

Virat scored 282 runs including a great hundred in Perth during the Test series down under | Getty

Greg Chappell grins with immense satisfaction watching Virat Kohli become a flag bearer for Test match cricket even in these times. The former Australian batsman feels that Indian captain's admiration for the game's traditional format will inspire the young generation around the world to wear those prestigious whites for their country.

"Virat Kohli is one of the best T20 players in the world, he’s also one of the best 50-over players in the world and he is one of the best Test players in the world," Chappell told CricketNext as Virat led India fantastically well towards their maiden Test series win in Australia, "He didn’t start with 20-over cricket. Ab de Villiers is another, he had an established game that he took into 20-over cricket."

"David Warner is one who went from T20 to international cricket, but even he had played a lot of red-ball cricket by that point. I think cricket without Test cricket will be less of a game. Kohli says it well: this is the most testing format and I want to be good at this and recognised at this."

"His attitude is not only important to him and to Indian cricket, it’s important to world cricket. He values Test cricket and the effect that this has back into India must be enormous. And I think it’s huge for the game. Because, if we give up on Test cricket, the game will be poorer for it."

"This is cricket. The others are forms of the game, but Test cricket challenges players in terms of skills, mentally, emotionally, endurance, psychologically, all of those aspects that other formats don’t call upon. The game has to value Test cricket if we want it to survive," he added. 

The ex-Indian head coach, who is now Australia's talent manager as well as a part of the national selection committee, also reflected at hosts' batting struggles throughout the four Test matches against India. 

"It takes a long time to develop a batsman. With all due respects to bowlers, who also have to be very talented, and it takes time to develop into a top-flight bowler, you get a few bites of the cherry as a bowler, but as a batsman, your chance may come before you are ready and then that opportunity might be gone," Chappell further said. 

"The pressure that applies is huge. The time that is required to develop as a Test batsman is huge. For instance, I was a selector when we picked Steve Waugh in the mid-80s and he took 27 Test matches to make his first hundred. He made runs in Tests, but his first hundred took 27 Tests."

"We wouldn’t get the opportunity to do that with young batsmen today. You can imagine if we dropped Waugh after 10 Test matches we could have lost one of the best batsmen we’ve ever had," he concluded.

 
 

By Kashish Chadha - 14 Jan, 2019

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