Virat Kohli lays down his vision for the Indian Test team

[Debutant]

Talk is cheap. Let's see him keep the team bonded together by hurling MC and BC at them.

So you wanted him to be quite in the interview :headshake:

[Desi Cartman]

Where is the vision?

[vvvslaxman]

Gambhir despite being an arrogant sob he handled the players well. I know couple of times he gave away his man of the match award to someone else. He had a different way of team building. Team building is the quintessential requirement here.. Lloyd handpicked 4 fast bowlers along with G,H,R and built a long lasting team. Same with imran Khan, Alan Border. Despite some funny strategies by Gauti in the IPL, he had a knack for building a team. Kohli better seek some tips from his fellow mcbc Gauti :)

[CricketBuffOne]

I have not seen him abusing our team members. Whatever aggression he has shown' date=' its against the opposition and I have not seen him showing a bad attitude when it comes to working hard on his game.[/quote'] Shiv, I did see him enter into a heated conversation with Gauti last or last to last season in IPL. Anyways, what I am trying to say is that until now he had to think only about his batting, but after becoming the captain he will be answerable for lot of other things as well. So its imperative that he does not let his anger get the better of him at any point of time, because if it does then it will affect the team morale and his relationship with players. As for batting, we all know he is pretty good at what he does, so no complaints on that front.

[CricketBuffOne]

Good to see our captain wants to win in test matches. Very refreshing approach. I think I wouldn't mind watching India vs Bangladesh test match' date=' now. Lol.[/quote'] This is one area where Kohli is different from his predecessors. You got to have that kind of attitude, if you really want to become the no. 1 team.

[Austin 3:!6]

Can never be a MS Dhoni. He simply does not have those captaincy skills.

[The Realist]

Can never be a MS Dhoni. He simply does not have those captaincy skills.

I hope he isn't a Dhoni. There is only so many whitewashes and capitulations we can take.

[BeautifulGame]

Let him captain Ishant and co for a few tests .

[Gollum]

A refreshing change after the torture time under Dhoni. Hope he sorts out his temper issues and keeps politics out of team selection. His outlook is positive, which is good. Positive cricket can take us to top of the charts with this crop of players.

[G_B_]

I dont know why people are saying he is talking too much about Anushka these scum reporters directly ask him questions on her. When he answers they print the interview and make it seem as if he is talking mostly about anushka.

[MCcricket]

Kohli to me is the right person like Ganguly was who is aggressive n demands n expects more plus has a lot of pride in seeing us as world beaters, With Shami, Umesh, Aaron and Ashwin along with decent bench we might be on the cusp of something special as our batters are world class,Rahane, Virat, Vijay, can score anywhere n are as good as fab 4 , Plus Pujara have high hopes from him. Virat needs to build his team, choose his soldiers n keep n eye for left arm pacers like Suyal, A Choudhury also K Yadav could be our trumpmcard in future ,Saha many times better test bat then Dhoni n will contribute away from home, also we will see the Jadejasn useless Dhonis allies sidelined in test, also seeing him support n play youngster Sarafaraz in IPL is a good sign as we might see influx of talent n not stagnate as under Dhoni

[Gollum]

One thing I keep forgetting about is our horrendous catching. I have decent hopes from our bowlers and our batting core is solid. In these 2 fronts we will improve over time. But if we keep spilling catches like this, esp of heavyweights like Cook,Bell,Clarke,Baz,BDV,Amla etc we will never make it to the top. The team that rose to number 1 in 2009-10 was a very safe catching unit. On the other hand I read that missed catches cost our team some 1500+ runs in the overseas assignments from 2013 -15.

[SLICKR392]

Too much Anushka..

Why is she even in the conversation? Anyway, nice jolly vision. Good luck. I hope under him there won't be much complacency. Especially touring overseas after winning a series back home.

[Ironhide]

The Full interview is out today: http://www.thecricketmonthly.com/story/877745/this-is-virat

[coffee_rules]

Let's see if he can forge strong bonds when he claims he performed the best among all his teammates in the last 4 years.

[flamy]

Let's see if he can forge strong bonds when he claims he performed the best among all his teammates in the last 4 years.

:giggle:

[CricketBuffOne]

As a player there is no doubt on his ability and commitment. It's his leadership skills that will be put under test, especially when on tough overseas tours.

[randomGuy]

I hope he isn't a Dhoni. There is only so many whitewashes and capitulations we can take.

Dhoni as test captain turned out similar to how sehwag was at the latter part of his career

[Muloghonto]

If Virat is serious about 'losing a few trying to win a few', then he must use this period to develop Ashwin into a lower order allrounder in tests. We do not have bowlers incisive enough or durable & accurate enough to plug away on unresponsive pitches at home or away. Our fast bowlers don't do the whole 30-10-85-2 kind of figures in test cricket on unresponsive pitches. Our pacers always either get completely demolished (30-4-155-2 kinda deals) or sneak in a few rare gems here and there or provide a breakthrough and hope the spinners mop up. As such, with the workload we take, we cannot realistically compete and go for wins with our bowling while its a 4 man bowling unit. We desperately need either a top six batsman to be capable of bowling 10-15 overs, occasionally 20 overs in test cricket per innings without getting clobbered or Ashwin to develop into a dependable #7 and play 4 more bowlers. To have Ashwin at #7, we need to experiment a lot with our wicket-keeping options and see who best fits the top six role as well as a decent keeper option. Ojha may have the goods for that. If not, we must channel Rishi Dhawan into the top six or someone who can be a 40 average batsman in tests and bowl like Steve Waugh or so. Otherwise, we simply do not have enough of an arsenal in our bowling attack to go for wins. Only way to win in the current 6+1+4 setup is to be conservative, hope the opposition messes up against our bowling and go for wins when time permits.

[zen]

Strong bonds? Good but it is not like the same group is going to play together for years Focus on winning is great but it should also be about making the team more professional, picking quality players (in as unbiased manner as possible), improving the bench strength, etc. This in turn would help India to win consistently Take a group of 5 doctors for example. As they are professionals, they will be focused on their work and interact amongst themselves harmoniously to get the job done .... On the other hand, take the Babus, who would have a developed a strong bond amongst each other, but laziness, red tape and corruption would be high (efficiently directing a helpless citizen from one table to another till his patience runs out and agrees to offer something under the table)