Virat Kohli's 5 best Test victories as captain
The selection committee’s decision to replace Mahendra Singh Dhoni with Virat Kohli as skipper of the Indian Test team earned negative reactions from the orthodox cricketing fans who believed that it was an extremely risky decision which could backfire.
IPL franchise, Royal Challengers Bangalore, who were considered as one of the strongest outfits in the competition, failed to win the trophy even once under Kohli’s leadership.
The 28-year-old was termed as “wet behind the ears” by certain pundits who suspected that his captaincy skills were still unproven in the longer format of the game. Many fans were worried that the burden of captaincy could even have a negative impact on his batting performances.
Virat Kohli has proven his critics wrong and sent out a strong message of intent by leading India to 13 victories in just 21 matches. Virat has instilled a winning mentality ever since he started captaining the Indian team.
His penchant for picking five bowlers in overseas tours has strengthened the fragile bowling attack. The Indian pace bowlers Mohammad Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Umesh Yadav have been extremely efficient under his leadership.
Kohli joined the illustrious list of captains who have scored three double centuries in a year. His Test average of 65.50 as a captain is second only to Don Bradman’s 101.51 among captains with 2000-plus Test runs.
We, here at Sportskeeda, decided to re-live India’s top 5 victories under his leadership in Test cricket -
#1 India vs West Indies - Darren Sammy National Cricket Stadium, Gros Islet, August 2016
(India won by 237 runs)
A Virat Kohli-led India created history by winning 2 consecutive Test matches for the first time ever in a series against West Indies in front of their home crowd. Jason Holder, the West Indian captain, won the toss and decided to bowl first hoping to pick up early wickets.
The Men in Blue accumulated 353 runs at a run rate of 2.72 per over which was possible mainly because of sublime batting performances by Ravichandran Ashwin and Wriddhiman Saha. The Indians were in deep trouble after losing 5 wickets with just 126 runs on the board.
Ashwin and Saha performed remarkably under pressure scoring 118 and 104 runs respectively which shattered the confidence of the bowlers.
Kraigg Brathwaite and Leon Johnson threatened to take the game away from the visitors stitching up a 50 run opening partnership. Sadly, after their dismissals, the West Indians could garner only 225 runs in response in spite of a fighting 48 by Marlon Samuels.
The Indian batsmen came out to bat in the second innings with an attacking mindset. With a lead of 128 from the first innings, the team declared after scoring 217 runs at an amazing run rate of 4.52 runs per over setting a daunting target of 346.
The West Indian batsmen were unable to handle the pressure and sacrificed their wickets in search of quick runs. A battling fifty by Darren Bravo failed to save their blushes as they crumbled for a measly 108 runs in just 47.3 overs.