Is Virat Kohli a better captain than Dhoni?
Such is the power of Sachin Tendulkar even post-retirement that the India vs Sri Lanka ODI series took a backseat.
Now that Playing It My Way is adorning the bookshelves of hordes of cricket fans around the globe, it is time for sanity to prevail. To be sure, the hype surrounding a celebrity’s book release is now something like a Bollywood blockbuster hitting multiplexes around a major festival.
After reams of newspaper pages and television time have been devoted to Tendulkar’s journey, one may well feel happy about another journey which has begun.
Yes, the heart-throb of Indian cricket Virat Kohli has gone about the stand-in captaincy job with flair and feel, and the results are there to see. As the dashing batsman steps out for the toss in Hyderabad today, he knows if he wins this match as well, India will clinch the five-match series.
This summer and leading up to the ODIs against the West Indies, Kohli was in bad form. He had struggled with the bat, but once he played himself into form, the Indian board handed over captaincy to him as MS Dhoni was injured.
With the selection committee postponing naming the team for the last two ODIs to be played in Kolkata and Ranchi, there is every possibility Kohli will lead in these two matches as well. Sources in the Board of Control for Cricket in India say Dhoni’s right wrist injury has still not healed fully.
Back to Kohli the captain, this was a major challenge to be leading the Indian side which has a mix of seniors and juniors. There is a lot of focus on who does well individually as the general belief is performance in these ODIs will count for the 2015 ICC World Cup selection.
As one who led India abroad before, Kohli’s body language has been extremely positive. Captaincy is something wherein a player creates his own leadership style. Unlike books on management which "teach" how to be a good boss, on the cricket field, a captain has to take decisions then and there. It is clear by the way Kohli has tinkered with the batting order and used the bowlers, there is a huge difference between the way he leads and what Dhoni would have done in the same situation.
In Cuttack, Kohli did not come in at the No 3 position as he wanted to keep the left-right combination going and thus sent senior pro Suresh Raina. And it worked. Quite clearly Raina has a wealth of experience having played 201 ODIs. That is 58 matches more than Kohli.
Both Kohli and Raina celebrated their birthdays last week so it’s good the skipper is being selfless as he knows when it comes to the World Cup, nobody is going to take away the high-profile No 3 batting position from him.
Then again, where Kohli showed a different approach was when he asked for the batting Powerplay in the first ODI. It did make a difference, where instead of the 36th over, Kohli took it in the 24th and 62 runs came from Shikhar Dhawan and Ajinkya Rahane.
Coming to the second ODI in Ahmedabad, it will be remembered by many for Ambati Rayudu’s scintillating hundred. Again, Kohli sent Rayudu in the No 3 position to reinforce the belief that the skipper is not selfish but selfless.
Personally for Rayudu, it was a big hundred, coming at 29 years of age, in his 21st ODI. What a knock like this will eventually do is stifle whatever little chance Yuvraj Singh has of making a return to the middle order for the World Cup. Add to it, his poor run in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, the selectors will not need to scratch their heads too much for the most important campaign in 2015.
As a captain who chooses his attack, Kohli has looked innovative. If Dhoni had the strategy of going in with three medium pacer and three spinners (two part-time), Kohli read the Motera wicket differently.
Experts had predicted the wicket would help seamers, but Kohli used three spinners in R Ashwin, Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja.
Experts are watching Kohli the captain very closely and even though this Sri Lankan side looks ragtag, the new leader’s ideas seem different. Looking at the future, by the time the series against the Lankans ends, Kohli would have offered his well-wishers and critics valuable insight into his art of captaincy.