Australia batting legend Ricky Ponting opined that since Virat Kohli has quit as India captain, he will be able to now concentrate on his batting and said that he must have taken the decision in his bid to do better with the bat and break some records.
Ponting, one of the most successful captains ever, hailed Kohli for his leadership skills, saying that under him India had improved its overseas record by winnings more Tests abroad than before.
“Yes, it did actually (surprise me)…I was shocked… Probably the main reason why is I had a chat and good catch-up with Virat during the first part of the IPL (2021) before it got postponed. He was talking then about stepping away (from captaincy) from white-ball cricket and how passionate he was to continue on to be Test match captain. He just loved and cherished that job and that post so much. When I heard it, I was really, really surprised,” Ponting said in the first episode of ‘The ICC Review’.
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Virat Kohli finished his tenure as the most successful India Test captain, winning 40 out of 68 matches he led the team in. India lost just five of the 24 series under his captaincy. Ponting rated India’s 2-1 triumph in the 2018-19 Border-Gavaskar as Kohli’s greatest series win as captain.
This included Test series wins abroad in Sri Lanka, West Indies and a maiden Test series win in Australia. India also leads 2-1 in England in the recent Test series which will be completed next year.
Ponting felt that Kohli being 33 years old now, wanted to just continue for the Indian team as a batter and probably break some batting records. Kohli has been stuck on 70 international centuries for more than two and a half years now and would love to get his 71st ton and go past Ponting in the list.
“There is potentially a shelf-life for international cricket captains and even coaches. Virat’s been there for close to seven years now. If there’s a country in the world that’s the most difficult to captain, it’s probably India because of just how popular the game is and how much every single Indian loves to see the fortunes of the team.
He is 33 years of age now and he will want to continue playing for a few more years I am sure and have a crack at breaking some records that he is not far off breaking. Maybe if he does that as a batter and without the extra responsibility of captaincy, it might make it a bit easier for him,” Ponting said.
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Ponting further lauded Kohli as captain and how he transformed India’s fortunes overseas.
“It was more of a staggering achievement for India than it was for us. When I took over, I took over a side that had dominated world cricket for a long time. If you think about India before Virat, it was about winning a lot of games at home and not winning quite as many overseas. The thing that improved most was India winning a few more games overseas.
There was a real focus placed on Test cricket by BCCI when Virat took over, and I think a lot of it has come from him as well – to focus more on Test cricket and winning more games home and away,” he said.
(PTI inputs)
