Kohli long-term Test captain: Dravid
13 Jan 2015 11:07 PM GMT
Kohli led the Indian side in two matches in the just-concluded Test series in Australia, which they lost 0-2, but Dravid said the BCCI can keep faith in him as he can lead the team and also perform individually.
“I think it’s early days for Virat. But he’s shown that he can lead. One of the biggest pluses for me was his own performance in this series. Now we know that Virat’s a shoo-in candidate for the captaincy, he’s someone whom Indian cricket can plan long-term with, and that’s what they should do,” Dravid said.
“The worst thing would have been, for someone like Virat, who was the obvious successor to Mahendra Singh Dhoni, to have not performed and not been sure of his own place, which was one of the concerns after the tour of England. But that’s not the case,” Dravid told ESPNcricinfo.
Dravid has no doubt about the current India batting line-up doing well in all conditions but said that the bowling department has been a let down in the recent past in overseas conditions, leading to the country’s nosedive in Test rankings. In the wake of India’s 0-2 series defeat in Australia and their slide to number seven in Test rankings, Dravid said that the country needs a long-term approach to improve the overseas performance of the bowlers.
“The bowling has been a big let-down, and I think if you are not consistently bowling well, if you don’t have world-class bowlers in both pace and spin, then you’re going to slide down the rankings because you’re not going to produce results,” said the 42-year-old former captain.
Dravid said India’s Test rankings will improve as the team plays more often at home in the coming months but winning more Tests overseas should be the benchmark. “Whether we’re seventh or fifth, for me that doesn’t really make a huge difference. We won’t play overseas for a long time, so our rankings will definitely improve. If we were having this conversation in 24 months and we haven’t played a lot overseas, then I might be talking about ‘oh, great, we’re up there in numbers one and two’. The point for me is how well we do when we go overseas from now and what are the steps that we’re taking to address some of the issues that have become pretty evident over the last 12-14 months,” Dravid added.
“I think it’s early days for Virat. But he’s shown that he can lead. One of the biggest pluses for me was his own performance in this series. Now we know that Virat’s a shoo-in candidate for the captaincy, he’s someone whom Indian cricket can plan long-term with, and that’s what they should do,” Dravid said.
“The worst thing would have been, for someone like Virat, who was the obvious successor to Mahendra Singh Dhoni, to have not performed and not been sure of his own place, which was one of the concerns after the tour of England. But that’s not the case,” Dravid told ESPNcricinfo.
Dravid has no doubt about the current India batting line-up doing well in all conditions but said that the bowling department has been a let down in the recent past in overseas conditions, leading to the country’s nosedive in Test rankings. In the wake of India’s 0-2 series defeat in Australia and their slide to number seven in Test rankings, Dravid said that the country needs a long-term approach to improve the overseas performance of the bowlers.
“The bowling has been a big let-down, and I think if you are not consistently bowling well, if you don’t have world-class bowlers in both pace and spin, then you’re going to slide down the rankings because you’re not going to produce results,” said the 42-year-old former captain.
Dravid said India’s Test rankings will improve as the team plays more often at home in the coming months but winning more Tests overseas should be the benchmark. “Whether we’re seventh or fifth, for me that doesn’t really make a huge difference. We won’t play overseas for a long time, so our rankings will definitely improve. If we were having this conversation in 24 months and we haven’t played a lot overseas, then I might be talking about ‘oh, great, we’re up there in numbers one and two’. The point for me is how well we do when we go overseas from now and what are the steps that we’re taking to address some of the issues that have become pretty evident over the last 12-14 months,” Dravid added.
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