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Former India captain Virat Kohli while speaking on the RCB Podcast said that he always looks at the positive side of things, and despite the fact that he failed to win ICC Trophies as a captain, he is grateful for winning a World Cup, a Champions Trophy and five Test matches for India which many players have not won.
Kohli led India from 2014-22 in Tests, 2013-21 in ODIs and 2017-21 in T20Is. Although India failed to win any ICC Championships under his leadership, they were quite successful in winning big series across all three formats.
Under Kohli’s captaincy, India played 68 Test matches and won 40 out of those, losing 17 matches and drawing 11 with a win % of 58.82, which is the third highest among all Test captains in international cricket with a minimum of 25 Test matches as captains. The only two captains who are ahead of Kohli on this list are Australia’s Steve Waugh (71.92 %) and Ricky Ponting (62.33 %).
In his 95 ODIs as a captain, Kohli has a win % of 70.43 with 65 wins, 27 losses, 1 tie and 2 no-results while in his 50 T20Is as a skipper, he has a win % of 64.58 with 30 wins, 16 losses, 2 ties and 2 no-results.
If you keep ICC Trophies at a side for a while, the numbers above tell the true story of how Kohli performed as a captain for the Indian team. During his years as a captain, India not only won many limited-overs series at home, but they also achieved historic ODI series wins in Australia and South Africa.
In Test cricket, India were a dominant force at home beating countries like Australia, England, South Africa and New Zealand, while they were also competitive away, winning the first-ever series Down Under in 2018/19.
Despite India not being able to win big multi-nation tournaments like the ICC ODI World Cup, ICC Champions Trophy, ICC T20 World Cup and ICC World-Test Championship under Kohli’s captaincy, he doesn’t judge himself for failing to achieve these milestones for India.
If you look, India were quite close to winning these tournaments as India reached the final of the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy, the semis of the 2019 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup and the final of the 2021 ICC World Test Championship.
“Look you play to win tournaments, and a lot was made of it (India not winning ICC tournaments) to be honest. We reached the finals of 2017 Champions Trophy, we reached the semis of the World Cup and finals of the Test Championship, and I was considered as a failed captain. I never judged myself from that point of view,” said Kohli.
For Kohli, it was more important to bring about a change in the team’s culture. Be it changing the fitness culture of the Indian team, or playing 5 regular bowlers and going for the win in Test matches with a clear focus on taking 20 wickets.
“What we ended up achieving as a team and the cultural change, for me that’s always going to be a matter of pride because tournaments happen for a certain period of time but a culture happens over a long period of time, and for that, you need consistency, for that, you need more character than just winning a tournament.”
Earlier in an interview before the start of the T20 World Cup in 2022, Kohli spoke about his fitness and why he considers fitness more important than cricketing practice.
“Fitness for me is probably more important than cricket practice. I honestly feel that having a fit body then makes you think better as well.
“I try to stay fit because if I have a moment where I can make a difference when there is pressure and I don’t have the bat in hand, it doesn’t mean my job is over. So, that’s something that I constantly look to do and work for that in the gym or on the training ground,” said Kohli.
Kohli is very grateful for the success he achieved as a player and believed that winning trophies is something that is not 100 per cent in your control and it’s depended on several factors including luck.
“I won World Cup as a player (2011), I won the Champions Trophy (2013) as a player. I’ve been part of a team that won five Test maces. If you look at it from that point of view, there have been people who have never won a World Cup.
“When things are meant to be, things are meant to be. Sachin Tendulkar was playing his sixth World Cup, and that was the one he won. And I was a part of the team for the first time, and we ended up winning the World Cup. So if I had to look at what went wrong with my career, it’s very easy to do that, but I look at what’s gone right in my career and I’m grateful for that.”
While speaking about his relationship with former India captain and legend MS Dhoni, Kohli revealed that Dhoni was the only person who reached out to him during his lean patch in the last few years.
“What is interesting is that throughout this phase apart from Anushka, who has been the biggest source of strength for me because she has been with me throughout this whole time and she has seen me very closely as how have I felt, things that I have gone through, the kind of things that have happened, the only person, who apart from my childhood coach and family genuinely reached out to me, has been MS Dhoni,” Kohli said on the RCB podcast.
Kohli shared the same dressing room with Dhoni for 11 years between 2008 to 2019. Kohli took over as Test skipper in 2014 after Dhoni’s surprising retirement from Test cricket in the middle of the series.
In January 2017, Kohli became the regular white-ball captain after Dhoni stepped as the limited-overs captain. He says Dhoni, who rarely uses his phone, called him twice during his tough times and shared some important messages.
“He reached out to me and you can rarely get in touch with him. If I call him on any random day, 99 percent he will not pick up (the phone), because he just does not look at the phone.
“So, for him to reach out to me, twice it has happened now and one of the things that he’d mentioned in the message while reaching out to me was that: ‘when you are expected to be strong and looked at as a strong individual people forget to ask how you are doing,’ said Kohli.
“So, it (Dhoni’s words) hit home for me because I have always been looked at as someone who is very confident, mentally very strong, who can endure any circumstances and find a way and show us the way. Sometimes, what you realise is that at any given point of time in life as a human being, you need to take a couple of steps backwards, understand how you are doing, how your well-being is placed.
“He has experienced what I have experienced right now. So, it is only out of the experience, and feeling those feelings in that moment is the only way you can be truly compassionate and understanding towards another individual who is going through the same thing,” he added.
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