Former Indian head coach, Gary Kirsten has often been termed as one of the best coaches India ever had as he led India to the Test rankings in 2009 and then to lift the coveted ICC World Cup 2011. He had replaced the controversial Greg Chappell and he managed to strike a balance between big stalwarts like Sachin Tendulkar and youngsters like Virat Kohli.
The current Indian skipper made his ODI debut in 2008, and while Kirsten acknowledged that straight away, he saw the “great abilities and talent” Virat Kohli has had and the former South African batsman knew “he wasn’t operating in the best version of himself”.
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Remembering the ODI series against Sri Lanka, Kirsten said, “When I met Virat first up, he had great abilities and talent and he was a young guy. But I kind of knew straight away that he wasn’t operating in the best version of himself. I’ll never forget one when we were playing an ODI series against Sri Lanka, and he was batting beautifully and he was on 30-odd not out. He then decided that he would try and hit the (bowler) over long-on’s head for six. And he got holed out.”
He further added, “I just said to him, ‘If you’re going to take your cricket to the next level, you need to hit that ball down the ground for one to long-on. You know you can hit a lot of balls up the ground, but there’s a lot of risks attached to that’. I think he took that on board a little bit and got a hundred in the next one in Kolkata.”
Kohli never looked back under Kirsten’s watchful eyes, going on to play a crucial part in India’s 2011 World Cup-winning team, and then pushing on to become one of the best in the world across formats.
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Currently, Virat is standing the no.1 position in the ICC ODI rankings, 2nd in Test rankings and 10th in T20I rankings. He has amassed runs all around the world. scoring 27 Test centuries and 43 centuries in ODIs.
Kohli has managed to maintain an average of 53.62 in Test cricket, 59.33 in ODIs and 50.80 in T20Is. Few even come close to his consistency, in recent times with his record in successful chases better than anyone else in the world.
