Ajinkya Rahane isn't Kohli, but he is aggressive in his own way: Gambhir
Former India batsman Gautam Gambhir remarked that India's stand-in captain for the 2nd Test, Ajinkya Rahane, is not like Virat Kohli. However, he stated that Rahane's captaincy style is aggressive in its own way, and tried to draw a line between being emotional and attacking as a captain.
Ajinkya Rahane is in line for arguably the biggest moments of his Test career. The Mumbaikar's third stint at the helm of India's Test team will come against a daunting Australian line-up after conceding a 1-0 lead in a disastrous fashion only a few days ago.
Many in India feel that the team will miss Virat Kohli's combative style of captaincy. However, talking to Sports Today YouTube on Friday, Gambhir brought up his experiences with former captains and opined they were successful in their own ways.
“See, one thing is you don’t change your personality overnight and you don’t need to change your personality. There are different captains, there are different personalities who have led their sides in a completely different way. Ajinkya can’t be Virat Kohli, Virat Kohli can’t be MS Dhoni and MS Dhoni could never be Sourav Ganguly. So all these guys have been successful captains,” said Gambhir.
Gautam Gambhir explained Ajinkya Rahane can show his aggression with his pro-active attitude, both while batting and fielding.
“It’s not about the emotions you show on the field or reacting to every wicket or reacting to every run you score and all that stuff. You’ve got many other ways of being aggressive. Your body language can be aggressive, your field placements could be aggressive, you could ask your bowlers to bowl different lengths, your batting could be different. There are so many other ways where you could lead from the front.. and people who say he wears his heart on his sleeve and all that stuff is irrelevant,” Gambhir added.
Ajinkya Rahane will have to lead from the front in Melbourne. He can take motivation from his average of above 50 at Melbourne and a charismatic 147 he scored here in 2014.
"Ajinkya Rahane does not need to change anything" - Gautam Gambhir
Gambhir compared former captains and said even Rahul Dravid was aggressive with his field placements. He remarked Ajinkya Rahane does not need to change his leadership approach.
“I could never expect someone like MS Dhoni to show emotions, Dada was a bit more emotional, Virat Kohli’s a much more emotional guy. Anil Kumble was aggressive when he captained the side, Rahul Dravid was aggressive in his own way- set fields, we chased totals, so Ajinkya Rahane does not need to change anything,” said Gambhir.
The 2nd Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy will kick off on Saturday morning.