Rohit Sharma and Mahendra Singh Dhoni are the captains who won the ICC Trophy for India. On the other side is Virat Kohli. He could never win an ICC tournament as captain. However, when the discussion comes to Test cricket, as a leader he appears miles ahead of Dhoni and Rohit.
Today, Virat is 36 years old. On this occasion, let us know what heights he reached in red-ball cricket and why his exploits as captain remain an example even today.
Won all 11 home series. Under the leadership of Dhoni and Rohit, India had to face defeat in the Test series at home. Under Rohit’s leadership, the Indian team recently had to face a New Zealand victory. This never happened under Kohli’s captaincy. He led the Indian team in 11 Test series on Indian soil. India has won all 11 series.
Kohli captained the team for the first time at home against South Africa in 2015. With the support of Ashwin and Jadeja and Kohli’s attacking fielding strategy, India won the 4 series tests 3-0. From there, under Kohli’s leadership, the team won every Test series at home.
Under the leadership of Kohli, who lost only 2 home Tests in 7 years, foreign teams considered even a draw in India an achievement. Under his captaincy, India have lost only 2 Tests in 7 years, one against Australia in 2017 and another against England in 2021. Under Kohli’s captaincy, there have been 5 draws tests in India, during which most of the time the weather favored the foreign teams.
Forget the sweep, Kohli has never suffered a series defeat at home. On the other hand, Kohli made a clean slate at home against New Zealand, South Africa, West Indies and Bangladesh. The Indian team had beaten New Zealand in 2 Test series under his captaincy.
After becoming full-time captain and winning 16 overseas Tests, Kohli drew against Australia in Sydney. India lost the series 2-0. After that, in 2018, under the leadership of Kohli, India played all the Tests in SENA countries namely South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia, where India won 7 tests.
Meanwhile, India played the remaining Tests in Asia and the West Indies. Under his captaincy, Kohli played 13 Tests in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and West Indies and won 9 of them. Here, the team lost only one match, while 3 Tests were drawn , rain spoiled India’s work in all three. These also include 2 clean swipes.
Defeated Australia in the series, stunned England, Kohli also helped Team India win 2 Test series in SENA countries. Not only that, a series England also played to a 2-2 draw. He even won 2 tests in strong South Africa. Kohli is the Asian captain with the most Test wins among SENA countries with 7 Test wins.
Kohli led India to a series victory in Australia for the first time in 2018. Kohli started his Test captaincy career in Australia 5 years ago. In 2021, Team India, started by Kohli, won the second consecutive Test series in Australia under the captaincy of Rahane. Kohli could only play one Test in the series due to personal reasons.
In 2021, Kohli also came close to defeating England in the Test series. India led 2-1 in the first 4 matches of the 5 Test series. The fifth Test was held in 2022 due to the Corona outbreak, but Kohli had stepped down from the captaincy by then. Under the leadership of Jasprit Bumrah, India lost the fifth Test and the series was drawn 2-2.
Kohli’s Test captaincy is also very important as he taught India how to win Tests and series abroad. Before him, if the Indian team won even a single Test at SENA, it was considered an achievement. Even before winning the series for the first time in Australia, India had lost 8 series.
The Indian team, led by Virat Kohli, suffered the only clean sweep in New Zealand. New Zealand also faced the worst situation. New Zealand defeated India in the final of the World Test Championship in 2021. Before that, in 2020, the team also lost 2-0 to New Zealand at home.
Apart from this, India have not faced a clean sweep in any other Test series during Kohli’s captaincy career. Apart from this, under Kohli’s leadership, India has won at least one Test in the entire 2 or more Test series.
Dhoni’s record overseas does not match Kohli’s. MS Dhoni was India’s second most successful captain after Virat. Under his captaincy, India won 27 out of 60 Tests. He could only lead India to victory 6 times in 30 Tests abroad, but he kept India ahead at home.
Under the leadership of Dhoni, India beat Australia in 8 consecutive Tests at home. Dhoni’s worst tour was in SENA countries, where he could win only 3 Tests. In 2011 and 2012, the team lost 8 consecutive tests against England and Australia. Dhoni lost the same number of 14 Tests as Kohli in SENA countries, but could not win as many Tests as him.
Rohit is far from Virat’s record. Rohit Sharma started playing Test in 2013. After his debut, India played 112 Tests, out of which Rohit could play only 64 matches. The reason was that he was bad on foreign tests. He started performing overseas from 2021 and established himself in the Test team.
As soon as he got his place in the Test team, the problem for Rohit was that Virat had left the captaincy in January 2022. He was forced to become a Test captain with both T-20 and ODI. The result was that India lost 5 home Tests in 3 years. India suffered a net score of 3-0 for the first time in their Test history.
The question is also whether Rohit is really a very bad Test captain? The answer is no, they won the Test series against England and have won 12 of the 21 Tests so far. However, thanks to 5 home defeats, he has definitely become India’s worst Test captain in the 21st century.
Kohli has also scored 7 double centuries under the captaincy. Batsman Virat Kohli gave his best performance in the presence of every captain, but when he himself became captain, he converted all the shortcomings of the Test batting into achievements. Kohli scored a record 7 double centuries under his captaincy.
Kohli couldn’t do much with the bat during the England tour in 2014, but in 2018, he turned things around and became the highest run-scorer in the series. In Australia he scores runs every time, he also scored a century in South Africa and explained why the ICC chose him as the best cricketer of the decade in 2020. Kohli is currently the fourth highest scorer of India.
Kohli is also the best ODI player of the decade. ICC also awarded Virat Kohli the Best ODI Player award as well as the Best Cricketer award. Even after his debut in 2008, Virat remains the best ODI player. By scoring his 50th century in the 2023 World Cup, he had left behind Sachin Tendulkar’s record of most ODI centuries.
Virat has almost 14,000 runs and next year he can become the player to achieve this record in the fewest innings. He is also the highest scorer of 765 runs in an ODI World Cup. In ODI he is also called Chase Master, he has the maximum number of 27 centuries to chase the target.
Virat Kohli played his best innings in the last T20 Virat Kohli retired from the T20 International, but in the last match of his career, he achieved this feat with the help of which India ended the drought in ICC Trophy. Virat had taken India to 176 runs by playing a 76-run innings in the T-20 World Cup final against South Africa in June this year.
India again won the final by 7 runs with excellent fast bowling. Virat received the player of the match award for scoring 76 runs, after which he decided to retire from this format of international cricket. He has the record for most scores of 4188 runs in 125 T20s after Rohit Sharma. He is also the top scorer in the IPL.
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