Former Pakistan spinner Danish Kaneria has advised Indian Test captain Virat Kohli to focus on his game ahead of the upcoming South Africa Test series, instead of inciting controversies.
This comes after Virat Kohli called out the BCCI selectors and contradicted the board, President Sourav Ganguly, on the issue of his removal as the ODI captain of the Indian team.
While Ganguly had said that he and selection panel chief Chetan Sharma personally spoke to Kohli about convincing him to stay on as T20I captain as selectors were not keen on having two separate captains for ODIs and T20Is; Virat in a press conference on the eve of Indian team’s departure for South Africa, refuted those claims saying no one spoke to him about this.
He also said that the selectors told him just an hour and a half before BCCI made the decision public and announced on Twitter that Rohit Sharma was to captain India in white-ball formats going forward.
This saga has put the communication gap between the captain and the board in public and while some have taken the board’s side and some Kohli’s side, Kaneria felt that the India batter must focus on his batting rather than giving inciting statements.
"It's been two years, Virat has not made any century, so he needs to focus on his game. Speaking against legends like Sourav Ganguly and anyone else is not going to help him. Virat had problems with Anil Kumble, now he has problems with Ganguly. Kumble and Ganguly have proved themselves; they are the real ambassadors of the game. Virat is speaking against Ganguly who has changed Indian cricket and then MS Dhoni took it forward. Now Virat's 90-minute jibe is really not needed at this time," Kaneria told IANS.
"He is struggling to make runs in Tests and T20s. And as a captain, he has not won any ICC trophy, so everything is going against him. And now this blame game, I don't think this is going to help him as well as Indian cricket," Kaneria, who is Pakistan’s highest Test wicket-taking spinner said.
Kaneria praised Rohit Sharma’s captaincy citing his impressive record in the Indian Premier League where he has won five IPL titles for Mumbai Indians and also pointed his camaraderie with new head coach Rahul Dravid.
Only the second Hindu cricketer to play for Pakistan, Kaneria also said that he didn’t think Kohli will have a good relation with Dravid, citing his problems with Anil Kumble, who was the coach for a year from 2016-17 and had a public falling out with Kohli.
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"As far as Rohit Sharma is concerned, he's been an outstanding ambassador of the game; he has won five IPL trophies. His captaincy is impeccable; his camaraderie with Rahul Dravid is amazing. I don't think Virat Kohli's relation with Dravid will be good in the long run. Virat had a problem with Anil Kumble as well. Both Kumble and Dravid are coming from South India and they have big status in cricket. I played against both of them, and I know what kind of intellectuals they are," the former leg spinner said.
A veteran of 61 Tests, Kaneria said that India has a very good pool of cricketers: "Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Mayank Agarwal, and even Priyank Panchal have been performing well. India has backup players for each and every position. If players like Rishabh Pant will not do better, KS Bharat and Wriddhiman Saha are ready to replace him. So if anyone is complacent and confident about their position in the team despite not doing good in the middle, will have to think twice,"
(IANS inputs)
