Statistics suggest that Virat Kohli is India’s most successful Test skipper with 33 wins from 55 games but ex-India opener Gautam Gambhir reckons the former has a lot to achieve in terms of captaincy.
Speaking on Star Sports’ show Cricket Connected, Gambhir pointed out that Kohli is yet to win a big trophy as captain.
“It is a team sport. You can keep scoring your own runs. There are people like Brian Lara who have scored so many runs. There are people like Jacques Kallis who have won nothing. Virat Kohli at the moment has won nothing, to be honest as a leader. He has a lot to achieve,” Gambhir said.
“You can keep scoring those big runs but according to me, till you win those big trophies you will never be able to fulfill your entire career,” he added.
The Kohli-led Indian team has failed to lift an ICC trophy as of now. While the Men in Blue lost the final of Champions Trophy 2017 to arch-rivals Pakistan, they suffered a heartbreaking defeat at the hands of New Zealand in the first semi-final of World Cup 2019.
"What sets you apart from being a good player to being a very very good player in a team is what you do on those crucial games," Gambhir, who was instrumental in India’s 2007 World T20 and 2011 World Cup triumphs, opined.
"I think probably we have not been able to handle the pressure, probably other teams have been able to handle the pressure that way. If you look at all the semi-finals and finals, it just shows when playing really well in the league stage and you don't play well in the semi-finals or knockouts, it’s probably your mental toughness as well.
"We can keep talking that we’ve got everything, we have the ability to be the world champions, but till the time you don't go on the cricket field and prove that, you will never be called the world champions. So it's just your ability in those crunch situations.
"I've always said this, in bilaterals and league stages you have got probably a chance to make the mistake, come to the knockout stages, you don't have a chance to make a mistake, you make a mistake and you're going back home.
"So that's where beliefs come into play and that where India lacks in all those crucial games," he further remarked.
It is worth mentioning here that the Indian cricket team hasn’t won a global tournament since 2013 despite making it to the final four in each of the ICC events thereafter.
