As Kohli tops Test rankings, Ganguly wants more on captaincy front

[Forever Indian]

Virat Kohli's 22nd Test century and his 200-run tally in the Edgbaston Test has vaulted him to the top of the ICC Test rankings for batsmen. He has dethroned Steven Smith, the former Australia captain, and is the first Indian to be No. 1 since Sachin Tendulkar in June 2011.

 

Kohli joins a select club, comprising Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsakar, Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir - the only other India batsmen to have reached the top spot in the Test rankings. He currently has 934 rating points, the most by any India batsman ever, and 14th on the all-time list. Donald Bradman, who reached 961 points in 1948, leads the list. Kohli is also ranked No. 1 in ODIs at present.

 

At Edgbaston, Kohli's remarkable efforts helped keep India in the Test despite top-order collapses in both innings. His first-innings 149 helped minimise the damage after India slipped to 100 for 5 and then 182 for 8 in response to England's 287. Kohli was the last man out, having got through a stern examination from James Anderson before opening up, leaving India with only a 13-run deficit. In the second innings, chasing 194, India's top order failed once again. Kohli was unbeaten on 43 overnight, and completed a half-century the next morning. However, he was lbw to Ben Stokes for 51, and India were eventually defeated by 31 runs. Kohli had tallied 200 runs in the match overall, while India's four other top-order batsmen - M Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul and Ajinkya Rahane - mustered just 99 runs between them.

 

While Kohli's batting continues to reach new highs, the poor showing from the rest of the batsmen reflects on his captaincy, according to former captain Sourav Ganguly, who felt Kohli needed to instil more confidence in his players by minimising churn in the line-up.

 

"If you're the captain, you will be criticised for a loss the same way as you will be congratulated for a win," Ganguly wrote on Instagram. "One criticism for Kohli is that he should give a consistent run to his batters and more time before dropping them.

 

"The captain should give confidence to his players. It's his team and only he can change their mindset. He will have to sit with them and tell them that if he can do it, so can they.

"He should give them time and tell them to go out and play without any fear. It is true that after continuous chopping and changing of the playing XI, players can get afraid that after all these years, they've failed to garner the faith of the team management."

 

For a second straight overseas tour, Kohli has single-handedly carried India's batting line-up. So far in 2018, he has tallied 486 runs at 60.75. The other top-order batsmen - the four who played in the Edgbaston Test and Cheteshwar Pujara and Rohit Sharma, who were part of the series against South Africa at the start of the year - have scored 809 runs between them at 21.86.

 

The line-up has stayed fluid. In South Africa, Dhawan was replaced by Rahul after two failures in the opening Test. Rahane, who was India's designated vice-captain, sat out the first two Tests but was brought back for the third. Before that, during the home Tests against Sri Lanka, India left out Vijay for the first Test in Kolkata, only for him to return in the second after Dhawan asked for a break citing family reasons. In the Edgbaston Test, India went in with all three openers at the expense of the out-of-form Pujara.

 

Ganguly said consistency in selection is something to strive for, given, in the past, it has been central to successful teams. "The good thing about the great teams of the past - be it Australia or South Africa or our very own team which won the series here [in England] in 2007 - was that the boys used to play both formats [Tests and ODIs] of the game. So even if you played badly in one or two matches, you got a lot of time to get back into form at the international level. Playing and scoring 150 in first-class cricket can't compensate for international cricket. In this team no batsman except Virat plays all formats."

 

Source: http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/24289190/as-virat-kohli-tops-test-rankings-sourav-ganguly-wants-more-captaincy-front

[Ankit_sharma03]

when the team isnt performing its the captaincy that tested more 

[Brainfade]

On the one hand we complain on this board that he gives way too long ropes to players and it's time to bring in new blood. SCG, otoh, is saying the rope is not long enough. How do we reconcile the two?

 

 

[rtmohanlal]

to  give confidence to the batsmen, first  the team needs to find a top 6 that can play together as a unit in all conditions. For that  trial and error method needed to have adopted.Unfortunately Sastri-Kohli has been an utter failure in that. For instance apart from Vijay and

Kathick , no body in the top 6 avg:ed 40 in ENG before the current series.Both Kohli & Rahane avg:s 50+ in each of ASN. But in ENG no body avg:s above 40 as of now.Instead proven hacks like Pujara & Dhawan are brought back into the team again.And the new entrant Rahul seems to  be inadequate too which is not helping  either

[express bowling]

First choose a bunch of players who can play test matches both home and away.

 

Then back them to the hilt.

 

Chopping and changing will be inevitable when Dhawan and Rohit play test cricket.  I dont think fans will want them to be backed.

[Forever Indian]

23 minutes ago, Brainfade said:

On the one hand we complain on this board that he gives way too long ropes to players and it's time to bring in new blood. SCG, otoh, is saying the rope is not long enough. How do we reconcile the two?

Kohli has never played the same XI in consecutive tests in his 35 odd captaincy tests. Also he keeps recycling old and proven failures in tests like recycling Gambhir, Parthiv, Rohit, Dhawan, etc.. So neither is he giving proper chances like a full test series to players in squad nor giving chance to youngsters.

 

He dropped Bhuvi after first test in SA where he was our best bowler and second best bat, just as an example.

[Forever Indian]

44 minutes ago, express bowling said:

First choose a bunch of players who can play test matches both home and away.

 

Then back them to the hilt.

 

Chopping and changing will be inevitable when Dhawan and Rohit play test cricket.  I dont think fans will want them to be backed.

This is what has been happened in the 4 years of Kohli's captaincy. Whenever opportunity arises in squad discards like Gambhir, Parthiv, Rohit, Dhawan, etc are brought back who are guaranteed to fail, then when they fail the ones whom they replaced come back. Rinse and Repeat!

Edited August 5, 2018 by Forever Indian

[Gollum]

[sandeep]

About time somebody had the balls to bell the cat.  

 

Screwing around with Rahane and Pujara, putting implicit pressure on Vijay to bat with "intent".  All of this can be directly traced to Koach.  

 

Constantly chopping and changing is the Pakistani way to handle players, not Indian.  A proven way NOT to get the best out of your team.  Virat needs to learn this lesson asap, else we are in danger of blowing a historic chance to win away series.  The SA tour wasn't lesson enough for him?

[coffee_rules]

No wonder Ganguly is left writing on Instagrams. And quoted by Cricinfo.

[nevada]

Kohli has climbed to #1 in batsman rankings but team morale seems to be first from the bottom or close to that among test playing countries. I will agree that chopping and churning is good the day he drops himself after just 1-2 failures.  

[rkt.india]

1 hour ago, Brainfade said:

On the one hand we complain on this board that he gives way too long ropes to players and it's time to bring in new blood. SCG, otoh, is saying the rope is not long enough. How do we reconcile the two?

 

 

Gives Long ropes to wrong players.

[Ankit_sharma03]

I Have a fear that kohli might have to start rebuilding this side soon (will write a post on that but later, it isnt the right time ...this team needs more time atlest end of this tour)

 

My fear is he isnt the right captain to do it

 

M ok with his tactical errors, everyone does it........but not happy with the way he is building this team 

[Shunya]

We just need to win games... These are very good times with our bowling so strong and opposition level has decreased badly...These are best opportunities we will ever have for SENA tours...

[vvvslaxman]

I agree with the overall philosophy.  But issue is more than that. Dhawan has got out in similar fashion 5 out of last 6 times in England over a period of 4  years. May be it is something more than that? Out of desperation we played both Ganguly and Dravid in England during 1996. Rest is history. Desperate times. Desperate moves. Bring in shaw and Gill who knows. You might unearth next Ganguly and Dravid like we did in 1996.

[coffee_rules]

Ganguly and Dravid were Ranji dadas before debut. Shaw and Gill are IPL, U-19 ODI heroes. And we are talking about blooding newbies for Test cricket! Out of the two, Shaw is ready and can replace the openers. I guess for the Aus series, we can't go with the same batting team. I don't want U19 players to be tried out first time for an away series.

[prasen82]

I feel there has to be minimal changes now and give folks a extended duration on this tour.

 

No matter how the stats look, these are our best batters . I doubt if anybody from the A team can come and do significantly better and it might be better to have them debut in Indian conditions. . We know how long it took for kohli to establish in test side. 

 

Identify players for future and give them a long rope . And for the rest give them adequate chances before letting go.

 

Dhawan should go the rohit route and be banished from tests .

 

This is the last trial for rahane , pujara , vijay. If they have crucial contributions we are good . And captain should give them the confidence stating all of them will play the last 4 tests .

 

 If they have performances to note keep them else drop them forever. 

 

DK ,pandya, rahul are match winners on their day and are crucial for our world cup chances . So keeping their confidence high is important.  I would want them to be given a slightly extended rope . This series and Australia series unless they flop miserably for 5-6 consecutive tests .

 

If we applied the same yardstick for kohli we never would have got the kohli we have for tests .

 

If the batsman come to form then we can think about kuldeep, for now it's so weak that I wouldn't tinker with the team balance as the bowling unit is doing well .

 

 

 

 

[wanted_desi]

Dhawan ---> Shaw

Vijay -----> Mayank

Pujara ---> Vihari

 

Stick with them for a year regardless. 

 

[adi B]

Dada spot on as usual ,says the way it is unlike the rest of our so called ex cricketer who are paid stuges 

[prasen82]

6 minutes ago, wanted_desi said:

Dhawan ---> Shaw

Vijay -----> Mayank

Pujara ---> Vihari

 

Stick with them for a year regardless. 

 

Agree with all , just to see if vijay or pujara have anything else in their tank this season before letting go. Would add rahane as well into the mix.