Don’t write off champions: Nathan Lyon on Kohli’s recent batting slump
The Australian team must be hoping to take advantage of Virat Kohli’s prolonged batting slump when the two sides clash in the five-Test series for the Border-Gavaskar trophy
Indian cricket skipper Virat Kohli is among the modern-day greats of the game both as a batsman and a leader. There is hardly any doubt that under Virat the Men in Blue have performed well in both limited-overs cricket as well as Test matches but what they have lacked is winning a world title.
Even in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, where India were looked upon as favourites to lift the title, the Kohli led side had to face a disappointing defeat against New Zealand and get knocked out of the competition. Given that India performs so good in bilateral cricket competitions and league games, it is nothing but an enigma why the team has struggled to perform as per potential in the crunch matches off late.
During a media interaction, former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir talked about Kohli’s graph as a skipper and agreed to the fact that there is still a long way to go for Kohli as a captain.
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“Lots! 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 during the latest episode of Star Sports show, Cricket Connected.
With Kohli at the helm of affairs, India lost the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 final against arch-rivals Pakistan and also failed to lead India over the line against the Kiwis in the semi-final of the World Cup 2019.
“You can keep scoring those big runs but according to me, till you win those big trophies you will never be able to fulfil your entire career,” Gambhir added.
India would be looking to amend that record under Kohli as two of the upcoming three World Cups are scheduled to be played in India- the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in 2021 and the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2023.
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