The legendary Sunil Gavaskar on Thursday said that Indian captain Virat Kohli has a lot left to learn in captaining the side in Test cricket. He stated that Kohli’s inexperience as the captain was clearly evident in the way he made his bowling, fielding changes and wrong field placements.
As quoted by India Today, Gavaskar said, “He (Virat) still has a lot to learn. Like we saw in South Africa earlier and now in England too, there were instances when right field placements or timely bowling changes made by him could have made a big difference. That was missing again. It has just been two years (he took over four years back) since he took over as a captain so at times the lack of experience shows.”
But Gavaskar has stood out in support of the 29-year old who defended head coach Ravi Shastri’s claim that this Indian side was the best travelling team in the past 15-20 years. The former batting great defending Kohli by saying that it wasn’t perhaps the right time for the reporter to ask him a question like this.
“That is probably the wrong time to ask him that question. He (Virat) must have been hurting from the defeat. Maybe the reporter was perfectly justified in asking that but I don’t think any skipper would have responded with a “you are right but we are wrong” statement,” he said.
“His team was 1-3 down and maybe he just wanted to end on a high. I don’t think that we should read too much into Virat’s reaction either. It was clear that the skipper was disappointed with what had happened and maybe he responded that way,” he added further.
Gavaskar, who had earlier been critical of Shastri’s comments, now felt that this remark might have been made by the Indian coach to boost the self-confidence and morale of the team.
He explained, “To be honest, Ravi (Shastri) would have said that (best touring team in last 15 years) to lift the morale of the team. I don’t think so that he was trying to rubbish the earlier teams. That wasn’t the coach’s intention I believe.”
Also Read: We have done better overseas than the Indian teams of the last 15-20 years: Ravi Shastri