Former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly believes present Indian captain Virat Kohli will perform well during their upcoming England tour. India will play three-match T20I series, three-match ODI series and five-match Test series during their upcoming English tour, starting from July 3.
Kohli had a poor run during his previous England tour in 2014 when he scored only 134 runs in 10 Test innings along with the average of 13.40. Apart from the 66-run knock in one-off T20I, Kohli had no 50+ score in that tour (including all formats).
However, Ganguly believes this time the right-handed batsman will perform well in England tour.
Ganguly spoke on that, “Kohli is a fantastic player. He will do well this time. I am happy that he did not play county cricket before the England series. I think he was eager to play county (ahead of the series) because he was panicky after not having a good tour last time around. He is too good a player to miss out this time.”
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While Ganguly feels that India has a bright chance for the upcoming English tour, he also believes that England will make the series closely contested.
Talking about the series, the former Indian captain said, “India’s chances are bright but England are also in good form. It will be a closely contested series.”
Ganguly also supported Tendulkar’s recent opinion on reverse-swing in ODI cricket as he feels that it is dying from the cricket.
The former Indian left-handed batsman said, “Yes two news balls do take reverse swing out of the picture because the ball doesn’t get old enough to reverse. Reverse swing is also dying because the grounds are a lot greener today. The balls don’t get scuffed up enough. They don’t get dry and rough on one side for the reverse to happen.”
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Ganguly also mentioned that the 481-like totals are the poor adverts of cricket. Ganguly is unhappy with the rotation policy system where the most of best bowlers are choosing either Test or ODI formats.
Ganguly said on that, “500 runs in 50 overs is terrible. Bowling has to find a way. I don’t understand why the best bowlers don’t play. Wasim (Akram) and Waqar (Younis) played ODIs and Tests all together, so did (Glenn) McGrath and (Brett) Lee and (Shaun) Pollock and (Allan) Donald. All played at the same time. I don’t understand having a separate set of bowlers for Tests and ODIs.
“It (481/6 in England) was a poor advert of cricket. Every over had three boundaries. You cannot have Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood not play. So the best of players have to play. Nathan Lyon mostly plays Tests, doesn’t play ODIs. Shane Warne played everything, so did Anil (Kumble) and (Muttiah) Muralitharan.”
