Former England captain Nasser Hussain recalled his first chat with the then India head coach Duncan Fletcher about young Virat Kohli.
Fletcher, the former Zimbabwe cricketer, was coach of the Indian team for a four-year term until the 2015 ODI World Cup – a period when Kohli was still improving and wasn't the great batsman he is today across all forms of the game.
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"I was speaking to Duncan Fletcher about him and he said 'watch out for this lad. He has a real fight and character in him'," Hussain revisited his chat with the man on Star Sports' show 'Cricket Connected'.
The feeling of admiration was mutual as Kohli a number of times credited Fletcher's simple but effective methods for his performances during those four years, especially when the coach helped him overcome a difficult tour of England in 2014.
From there, such was Kohli's dominance that the selectors thought of him as the right man to lead the Test side and soon take over from MS Dhoni in ODIs and T20Is also.
Under Kohli, India reigns supreme on top of the ICC Test rankings and has been a force to be reckoned with in white-ball cricket.
"He is not worried about stats. The only stats he is worried about is the win/loss column," said Hussain.
Kohl has scored 7,240 runs at an average of 53.63 in 86 Tests. In ODIs, across 248 games, he has made 11,867 runs at an average of 59.34, strike-rate of 93.25, while in 81 T20Is, the 31-year-old has had 2,794 runs to his name at a strike-rate of 138.25.
(Inputs from IANS)
