Virat Kohli Virat Kohli might end his ODI captaincy roles for India as well: Ravi Shastri.
Former Indian head coach Ravi Shastri on Friday reckons Indian skipper Virat Kohli might end his ODI captaincy roles for the Indian team after giving up the T20I roles to focus solely on his batting.
Shastri’s head coach’s tenure with the Indian side ended following India’s early exit from the ongoing T20 World Cup 2021. India just managed to make it to the Super12 stage of the showpiece event.
“In red-ball cricket, India has been the No1 team in the world for the last 5 years under Virat Kohli. So unless he wants to give up or if he is mentally fatigued and says he wants to focus on his batting – which can happen in the near future, don’t think it will happen immediately – it can happen,” said Ravi Shastri speaking to India Today.
Virat has already relinquished his shortest format captaincy and will play as a pure batsman in the T20I team.
The former head coach believes that Kohli might say he has enough of the captaincy burden and now just want to focus on test captaincy and his batting in all three formats.
“The same might happen with the ODI. He might say he wants to focus just on Test captaincy. It is his mind and body that will make that decision. He won’t be the first, there are many players in the past who have had very successful tenures and captains and then given it up to focus on batting,” Shastri added.
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For a couple of years now, BCCI and team India have been under the public radar over the split captaincy issue, where one group wants Virat Kohli to lead the side in all three formats while one wants to explicitly apply the split captaincy. However, a proper judgement from the Indian cricket board is yet to come.
BCCI is not in a hurry to take a call of Virat’s ODI captaincy. If the sources close to the development are believed, Virat’s fate in the ODI captaincy will be discussed only before the South Africa tour.
Ravi Shastri on media critisism:
The 59-years old believes that taking criticism of the outside world is the job of the coach when the team losses. You need to move on after taking it on the chin, he said.
“You just got to take it on the chin. We won so much, people weren’t used to us losing. To take the bullet is the job of the coach. You overcome all those hurdles, you don’t let it pull you down. You have to ensure the team gives their best. Take criticism along the way and move on,” Shastri added.
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