While showering praises for the Indian skipper Virat Kohli after the successful tour of South Africa, India’s head coach Ravi Shastri has compared the Indian skipper to Pakistan‘s World Cup winning captain Imran Khan. He said, ”It’s still early days for Virat. He is still very very young. But he is already there among the very best. He wants to lead by example. He reminds me a lot of Imran. He is still very young but he has got a lot of qualities that Imran had when it came to leading a side. Which is great.”

Kohli is currently standing at the No.1 position in ODIs and he was in imperious form against the Proteas becoming the first batsman ever to score 500 or more runs in a bilateral ODI series. As quoted in Cricket Country, when asked about the similarities between Imran and Kohli, Shastri said, ”Just the ability to always want to dominate, want to compete, irrespective of whatever conditions you get, believe that you can do it and when you have that kind of quality it spreads among the other players as well. And that was very similar to the way Imran led.”

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He further elaborated, “When you are the leading batsman in the side plus the captain, plus the conditions you get, plus the side that you are playing which is formidable, you need to be on top of your game. Mentally and physically. And he did just that. For someone to score 870-plus score on a single tour in two months, is an unbelievable achievement. Really unbelievable achievement.”

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Shastri lashed out at former cricketers asking Kohli to cut down on his aggression on the field, he said, ”My only advice to them is to mind their own business. I think he is absolutely fine. If there was a problem, the umpires are there. The match-referee is there to sort it out. What are they there for? He is hardly been called by the match-referee for going over the top in his career. So where is the problem?”

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Talking about the decision of batting first in the Johannesburg Test, Ravi said, “On that track, everyone was surprised that we batted first. But the end result shows we were right.It is one of the toughest tours and if you look at the pitches that were on offer to us, it is chalk and cheese when you look at the track that has been given against Australia.”

Ravi Shastri concluded by talking about the confidence of the team, he said, “I have always said that we don’t want a team that would complain about the tracks. We will play on whatever is on offer. And we will try and get the right combination to counter that.”