Sourav Ganguly wants Virat Kohli to win the Asia Cup 2014

Former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly wants Virat Kohli to win the Asia Cup 2014, which he feels would help Mahendra Singh Dhoni to come out of his comfort zone and reinvent himself as a captain.

“I want Virat [Kohli] to win this tournament [Asia Cup],” Ganguly told a news channel on Tuesday, 25th February 2014.

“This would help Dhoni to come out of the comfort zone and help him to reinvent himself as a captain,” he explained.

Ganguly feels that Virat would enjoy his captaincy and prove his strengths as a captain since he knows that Dhoni would be the captain in the Twenty20 World Cup.

“It would be inappropriate to say that Kohli would be under pressure in the Asia Cup because even he knows that Dhoni would be the captain in the Twenty20 World Cup. So I would advice him to enjoy his captaincy and prove his strengths as a captain,” Ganguly said.

Ganguly feels it’s early days to predict Kohli’s captaincy but still he reminded about Kohli’s performance as captain in the tri-series in West Indies in 2013.

“It would not be right to predict on Kohli’s captaincy now. But I would like to remind everybody the way Kohli led the team and batted in the West Indies.”

“He had scored a 100 there and that helped India to get into the finals,” Ganguly said.

Ganguly disagreed with the former Australian skipper Ian Chappell’s description about MS Dhoni as a “meander along like an absent-minded professor strolling in the park”.

“I don’t agree with his [Chappell's] opinion. I think Chappell should rethink about this comments,” Ganguly said.

Ganguly said that MS Dhoni’s absence would be a real test for the lower middle-order batsmen like Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin and Ganguly also suggested to Kohli to bat at no 4 to give balance to the side, with Rahane at no 5.

Ganguly also advised Kohli to go with five bowlers, including three pacers which would be much useful in the flat pitches of Bangladesh.