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Shoaib Akhtar comments on Virat Kohli’s captaincy saga
By SMCS - Jan 23, 2022 1:33 pm
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Former Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar has supported Virat Kohli to overcome this poor form with the bat and return soon as he urged him to put behind all the captaincy saga and focus on his batting as well. While speaking exclusively to Sports Tak from Oman, Shoaib Akhtar claimed that there are “lobbies against him” and because of that, he quit captaincy.

virat kohli
Virat kohli scored a fifty in the first ODI

“It was a tight scenario for Virat. I was in Dubai and I was aware that if he wouldn’t have won the T20 World Cup, it would have become a big problem for him and it did happen. There are lobbies against him and there are people against him and that is the reason why he stepped down,” Shoaib Akhtar told India Today.

“Whoever enjoys the star status, will always face problems but there’s nothing to fear about. Anushka (Kohli’s wife) is a very nice lady and Virat is a great guy. He just needs to be brave and not be afraid of anything. The whole country loves him, just that these are testing times for him and he needs to come strongly out of it,” he stated.

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Notably, Virat Kohli has quit Team India’s Test captain after the Test series defeat in South Africa by 2-1. While he quit the T20 captaincy in November last year, he was sacked as ODI captain ahead of the South Africa series.  However, Shoaib Akhtar added that Virat Kohli has to give all his energy to scoring now.

virat kohli
Virat Kohli was dismissed on a duck

“Now that it has happened, he needs to work hard now and not work too hard. Keep it simple and just play his normal cricket. Captaincy is not an easy job – you have to handle a lot of things and there is a lot of tension that comes with that job. Now that he is off the hook, he just has to make sure that he enjoys his cricket. He is great and he should know that. He just has to enhance his value. He should know that he can’t be imprisoned of his own bitterness. He should forget and forgive people and will become an even better human,” Shoaib Akhtar added.

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“If he can give good performances in the next five-six months, he will be happy to have quit captaincy and would tell himself that he can score 120 international hundreds. His next 50 centuries will be because of the anger that he has now. And, this anger does not have to be reflected on people but in his batting,” Shoaib Akhtar concluded.