Former South African skipper Graeme Smith is not sure if the Indian skipper Virat Kohli can do long-term captaincy for Team India. He said, “I don’t know when I look at him if he is a long-term captaincy option for India.”

Doubting Virat’s captaincy in overseas, Smith said, “At the end of this year, he’d have been away from home for a while, the pressure he’ll face, the scrutiny from the press – I know he only gets that in India – but if you’re away from home and you’re struggling for form as a team, I don’t know if I’d want to burden Virat Kohli with that… Or if India has a better leader in that environment.”

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Smith said that while his passion for the game is good for his own personal game, Kohli will have to consider the fact that his reactions also have an effect on the players around him. During the Centurion Test, several pundits coined that despite Kohli’s score of 153, none of the other players was able to replicate the same. He looked increasingly frustrated as wickets fell down the other end.

Smith further explained, “Sometimes as a leader you’ve got to consider how you impact the others in the environment, that’s an area of his leadership that he needs to grow. You can see, he’s often at his players. He’s very aware, he’s focus on the game is on, sweeping or mid-on. [But] often his reaction to situations… I think that can sometimes impact on your team negatively. For him, he’s built this aura and for him maybe to find a level where he can connect with all his players, to get to a level where can get the Indian team to be as successful as he is, that’s something that he, when I watch him, is grappling with.”

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Graeme also said that an individual in the support staff who can “constructively” challenge Virat might help him grow. He described, “He has all the capabilities tactically, he knows his own game, he sets the standard in the field for everyone else. I think if he had a really constructive person in his environment, who could talk to him, make him think, maybe even challenge him with some different ideas, in a constructive way, not an angry or aggressive way, but make him think, open his eyes to other possibilities, that would make him a really good leader.”

The former South African skipper concluded by stating that sometimes a leader needs to create a soft environment in order to get the best out of the other players. He said, “As a leader you need to understand the whole environment, talk to the players to try to get the best out of the environment. He might grow as he learns to soften that a little bit. His performances speak for themselves, it’s about whether he can get the best out of those around him when they are under pressure.”