Can Virat Kohli lead India’s Test baton successfully?

When India’s Captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni announced his retirement from Test Cricket captaincy, there was a pool of questions reflecting a series of skepticism.  Why did Dhoni quit? This was the question every TV news channel was asking to the cricket experts. Although this skepticism proved useless in time, as Dhoni had clearly mentioned in a statement released by BCCI saying that,” He (MSD) was finding it increasingly difficult to continue in all formats of the game and that he wanted to focus on limited-overs cricket, with the World Cup coming up in mid-February”.

MS Dhoni’s resignation made way for Virat Kohli, to be India’s new Test cricket baton holder. In other words, Virat Kohli was now officially India’s test captain. As India will take on Bangladesh from 10 June onwards and will play the only test match in Khan Saheb Osman Ali Staduim (Fatullah city), it’s time for scrutinising Virat’s captaincy skills again.  Virat Kohli, India’s flamboyant right handed batsman, lead the Indian team first time in Australia last year in December. He had scored an outstanding 115 runs in his first innings. According to cricket statistics, he was the fourth Indian to score a ton on his test captaincy debut. Also Kohli's total of 692 runs in four Tests was the most, by any Indian batsman in a Test series in Australia.

History has shown many young test captains which has led their national teams in the sport of cricket. Some of them are as follows:-

1. Tatenda Taibu has been the youngest skipper for both (Tests and ODI) for Zimbabwe.

2. Waqar Younis was also the youngest captain for Pakistan in Tests and ODIs.

3.  Similar to Taibu and Waqar Younis, Graeme Smith became the youngest captain to lead South Africa in both Tests and ODI in 2003.

4. Aravinda de Silva became the youngest Test captain for Sri Lanka at the age of 25.

5. Stephen Fleming led the Test team when he was 23 years old to become the youngest Test captain for New Zealand.

When asked about what he feels about Virat Kohli leading India’s Test team Sushant Jadhav, a Journalist from Pune says, “There are chances that Virat’s individual performance as a Test captain may suffer as he juggles between the two roles. He is a leading Indian batsmen and an important part of our team. Expressing his views on Virat’s captaincy style Jadhav says,” Dhoni’s style of captaincy cannot be replaced by Virat. Both have a different style of captaincy. The former is cool while the latter carries an aggressive approach”.

Virat Kohli is already surrounded with many apprehensions and gossips associated with his Bollywood girlfriend Anushka Sharma. Aggressiveness combined with flavour of accuracy, this Royal Challengers Bangalore captain has a new task on board. Amidst all this speculations, it will be interesting to see, if he will be once again acknowledged and hailed for his captaincy skills or not.