After giving up his captaincy duties, Virat Kohli will be playing his first match as a player against South Africa in the 1st ODI in Paarl on January 19. Kohli stepped down as the T20I captain after the conclusion of the 2021 Men’s World Cup 2021 and was removed as the ODI captain soon after.
The 33-year-old decided to step down as the Test captain as well post the Test defeat at Cape Town bringing an end to a delightful 7-year-old stint.
As Kohli will be playing his first match as a player after a long time, he should give “some amount of time” to adapt, said former Indian cricket all-rounder Sanjay Bangar.
He expects the 33-year-old to pass some suggestions and inputs to the stand-in captain KL Rahul as both the players share a great “rapport”.
“It's not easy straightaway being a captain for a long period and then playing as a player. He is not going to be in the circle at a certain point, he'll have to man the boundary. When you have time between the ball, he might wonder what he would have done, maybe the changes or what he would have said to the team during breaks or before the game. So those are things that will linger on for some amount of time, it's not gonna go away in a jiffy," said Bangar on Star Sports when asked about the transition.
Also Read: Justin Langer says he is not nervous about his contract extension talks with Cricket Australia
"But KL Rahul the guy who's leading at the moment has got a great rapport with Virat and I believe because of the rapport he can easily pass on the inputs during match time,” the former cricketer added.
Talking about the road ahead for Kohli, Bangar shared the examples of Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar and explained how giving up captaincy displayed a positive impact on their batting.
“Virat the kind of phase he is in a good four-five years of cricket remains if not more. Look at the history of Indian cricket Rahul Dravid gave up captaincy. Sachin Tendulkar gave up captaincy and they continued to play for a longer period and maybe their performance also increased."
"The way I look, Virat Kohli is fabulous as a leader and he did that job really well for over six years. Now it's time to unveil Virat Kohli 3.0 because he can be as damaging a batsman with no responsibility. So, I look forward to some great batting performances from him because Virat Kohli the batsman is what sets the world on fire,” he added.
