Virat Kohli successful as a captain due to pool of quality players, reckons Monty Panesar
England left-arm spinner Monty Panesar feels that a large part of the credit of Virat Kohli's success as India's captain goes to the number of quality players that are in his team. India have played some top quality cricket in all three formats over the past two years and Panesar believes that Kohli has all the options one needs as a skipper to go out and attack the opposition.
"He (Kohli) has got options, hasn't he? He can play finger-spin, he can play wrist-spin. It doesn't really matter as long as they win. So I think he's probably just picking the team on whoever is performing well," Panesar told TOI during the launch of his book 'The Full Monty'.
"The reason that he's doing well is that he knows he has a group of, let's say, 15 to 20 players he can pick from. And he knows they will all perform well," he further added.
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Panesar though has not taken the entire credit away from the Indian captain as he believes that the fitness culture that Kohli has brought into the Indian team has completely changed the energy levels of the players and made them fitter and hot to handle, especially the fast bowlers.
"I think he (Kohli) has changed the team dynamics, the fitness of the players. The seam department is a lot better now. I think what West Indies of the '80s and Australia of the '90s did was that when they played away, they didn't just win once, they did that again (and again)," Panesar stated.
India have two big tours of New Zealand in February 2020 and Australia towards the end of next year and Panesar believes that India have a genuine chance of winning against New Zealand and that he will not be shocked if India do manage to win the series because winning Test series overseas is what Kohli has always stressed about.
"India have got this tour of New Zealand happening and they need to win there because you don't want people to think that was just a one-off (overseas) series win. Australia may not happen again but New Zealand is a lot easier, isn't it? Virat Kohli has got a good seam attack now. So they should beat New Zealand in New Zealand," he concluded.