Former Australian skipper Ian Chappell was known to be the most intelligent captains the world has ever seen and recently he gave an interesting perception on the captaincy of Virat Kohli, who recently led India to victory in the first of the four Tests they are playing in Australia at the moment. The win has helped Kohli to become one the most successful Test captains for India, the crown for which currently rests with Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
Despite having a decent captaincy record, Virat has been criticized over the past despite his impressive record as the captain as one who doesn’t always take the best of decisions while selecting the squad or making bowling changes. Another accusation against captain Kohli is that he concedes too many single runs to the opponent. For Chappell, however, some of these are not mistakes that only Kohli commits as the skipper.
As per the quotes in ESPNCricinfo, the veteran cricketer said, “I think Kohli is a good captain. Like all modern captains, he sets deep fielders too often. He gives easy singles to batsmen. If you give good batsmen easy singles early in their innings you can quite often pay a hefty price for that.”
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India secured a 31-run win over Australia in the first Test match played at Adelaide Oval despite a strong resistance by the hosts’ lower order on the final day of the game. Kohli had decided to bat first after winning the toss and the visitors only managed to score 250 runs in their first innings riding Cheteshwar Pujara’s century and then their bowlers won half the battle for their side by restricting Australia to 235.
The veteran Indian batsman Cheteshwar Pujara played another innings of 71 in the second innings along with the deputy skipper Ajinkya Rahane (70) to take India past 300 and then chasing 323 runs to win the match, the home team was all out for 291 after struggling at 187 for 7.
This is the first time that India took a lead in the very first Test played in Australia, bettering the 2003 tour’s record when they won the second Test to go 1-0 up. That series was eventually drawn 1-1 but India has all the opportunities this time to register their first-ever Test series win in Australia.
