Former Indian middle-order batsman Sanjay Manjrekar has impressed on the Indian skipper Virat Kohli as he believes that the 29-year-old has earned a special place among the Indian cricketing greats.
On Monday (August 6), Manjrekar joined in a debate with English batsman Jason Roy, the International Cricket Council Chief (ICC) Executive David Richardson, the former Hampshire cricket and broadcaster Mark Nicholas.
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When Manjrekar was asked to rate the Indian skipper Virat Kohli as a batsman, the former Indian cricketer not just praised, also compared with the nation’s greats.
Manjrekar said about Kohli according to the icc-cricket.com, “Even among Indian greats now, he’s finding a special place. It’s amazing. You talk about dirty Varanasi waters, but Indian waters keep producing these kind of phenomenal batting talents, year after year, generation after generation.”
He further added, “Sunil Gavaskar quit in 1987. We had Tendulkar two years later, in 1989. And as he was winding up his long career, here comes Virat Kohli.”
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In the first Test of the ongoing five-match Test series against the hosts England at Edgbaston (Birmingham), Indian skipper Virat Kohli stood as one man army in Indian batting line-up who scored 149 and 51 in team’s 274 and 162 runs innings respectively. However, his hard work went in vain at the end as England beat the visitors’ Indian team by 31 runs.
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Talking about the difference between the other greats and Kohli, Manjrekar mentioned the self-belief and self-confidence.
Manjrekar quoted, “Where I find him different from other batting greats is his self-belief, his self-confidence. I remember he averaged 13 (13.4) the last time he was year in England. The very next Test match was in Adelaide, and he walked out like he was king of Adelaide.”
The current no.1 ODI ranked batsman Kohli has just become the no.1 Test ranked batsman after achieving 934 Test rating pints, a new record rating points for an Indian batsman. Kohli becomes the seventh Indian batsman to reach the top spot of the Test batting ranking. The other Indian batsmen to achieve this feat were – Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir.
