3 Players who stepped up their game under Virat Kohli's captaincy
The six-year-long journey of MS Dhoni's Test captaincy came to an end on 30th December 2014, which was no less than a shock for Indian cricket enthusiasts as this call came unexpectedly.
The Ranchi cricketer whom some call the 'all-time best captain', some 'the coolest player' and some 'the best finisher' has been one of the successful skipper's for India in Test cricket. He had taken the job in 2008 by replacing Anil Kumble.
In 2017, when Kohli was already leading India in Test matches, Dhoni gave up the limited overs captaincy as well, handing Kohli all the three formats. However, Dhoni hasn't packed his boots yet as he recently captained India in the Asia Cup for the 200th time.
The captaincy is considered as one of the most crucial and toughest jobs in cricket as it takes some serious efforts in handling it well. Meanwhile, it is seen that under a particular captain several players grow while some fail as well.
Similarly, there have been some players who were a huge success during MSD's time while a few also stepped up their game since Kohli was made the captain.
In this piece, we have identified three of those players:
#1 Kl Rahul
The Bangalore based cricketer, Lokesh Rahul is quite a known name in Indian cricket these days, yet he wasn't in that limelight when MS Dhoni was the skipper.
The right-handed batsman who occasionally keeps the wickets made his Test debut in 2014 during India's tour to Australia. Thereafter he has appeared for India in 29 Tests and scored 1811 runs at an average of 38.53.
In limited overs cricket, he debuted under MS Dhoni against Zimbabwe in 2016 and went on to score an unbeaten hundred in the first match. However, later due to an on and off display of batting, he couldn't cement his place in the team.
Rahul has played 13 ODIs and 19 T20Is, most of which came under Kohli's captaincy. Even during the recent England tour, questions were raised over his inclusion in the team despite the continuous failures.
Though, Rahul was again named in India's Asia Cup squad, where he appeared in one match so far and scored 60 runs.