Virat Kohli: The Captaincy Breakdown

[Spark]

Yeah but the all-formats captain definitely has more influence than merely "zero idea", and he has a bit more to do with it than tossing them the ball. We've seen how captains can negatively impact a fast bowler's development with Root and Archer but can also, by clever utilisation, can help them achieve greatness in unique ways that no one else had forseen (Clarke and Johnson). I wouldn't credit him with all of it by any means, but he's certainly a contributor.

 

[subshakerz]

Yea I agree with the first bit, but you have no idea what Dhoni would have done because he did not have the option available to him. The resources at Kohli's disposal is literally unprecedented in Indian history.

And besides, many people don't actually like the 5 man attack strategy, so while I credit Kohli with that many would see that as a black mark.

I would agree with the strategy backfiring often, but my point is that it points to him promoting a 'bowlers win matches' culture.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Yeah but the all-formats captain definitely has more influence than merely "zero idea", and he has a bit more to do with it than tossing them the ball. We've seen how captains can negatively impact a fast bowler's development with Root and Archer but can also, by clever utilisation, can help them achieve greatness in unique ways that no one else had forseen (Clarke and Johnson). I wouldn't credit him with all of it by any means, but he's certainly a contributor.

We're comparing Kohli with previous India captains here with regards to how they didnt have a "focus" on pace attacks. It's because none of them had these resources not because they didnt think fast bowlers were important. The few years Dhoni had zaheer, we did well overseas.

The idea that Kohli "built" this pace attack is disresepectful af to the others involved in their improvement and I 100% agree with cnerd here. Kohli also hasnt managed Bumrah well at all and I wouldn't be surprised if he breaks down in another couple of years again.

 

[cnerd123]

Getting the best out of your pacemen is one of the traits of a quality captain. Brearley wrote a lot about this. It's not like bowlers are robots you just need to wind up and let loose.

Getting the best out of your entire XI is the captain's job, and Kohli was pretty good at that. He set the ~vibes~ of the team and I think he generally did a good job. But this is a very different take to "putting together a very competent test pace bowling unit".

I wouldn't even argue that he got the best out of our quicks tbh. He's definitely overbowled Bumrah and Shami at times, he messed around with how he used Yadav in Australia, and if you believe he has so much influence then he basically killed off Bhuvi's red-ball career. And this is just stuff I remember off the top of my head.

Plus our quicks will all probably still have great records in the next few years despite Kohli's absence. Time will tell, but if they're still getting good numbers and bowling sides out then that's just because they're good bowlers and not because of any Kohli magic.

 

[Spark]

We're comparing Kohli with previous India captains here with regards to how they didnt have a "focus" on pace attacks. It's because none of them had these resources not because they didnt think fast bowlers were important. The few years Dhoni had zaheer, we did well overseas.

The idea that Kohli "built" this pace attack is disresepectful af to the others involved in their improvement and I 100% agree with cnerd here. Kohli also hasnt managed Bumrah well at all and I wouldn't be surprised if he breaks down in another couple of years again.

I mean nor would I but you know my thoughts on that and wouldn't really be blaming Kohli for it unless he goes for Root/Archer tier dumbass overbowling.

 

[subshakerz]

Yeah but the all-formats captain definitely has more influence than merely "zero idea", and he has a bit more to do with it than tossing them the ball. We've seen how captains can negatively impact a fast bowler's development with Root and Archer but can also, by clever utilisation, can help them achieve greatness in unique ways that no one else had forseen (Clarke and Johnson). I wouldn't credit him with all of it by any means, but he's certainly a contributor.

Yeah, young pacemen especially need special encouragement from captain to keep wind in their sails.

One reason Shoaib struggled in his career was that he had an uneasy relationship with the captains on top of him. Wasim and Waqar were both a bit insecure in pushing him forward, and he regularly clashed with Inzi. Of course, Shoaib was also his own worst victim but I think a more confident captain could have got the best out of him.

Wasim on the other hand had Imran as a mentor who groomed him and virtually directed him ball by ball in his early years, and more importantly taught him and Waqar the fitness regime to keep them going as a worldclass bowler for a long career.

 

[cnerd123]

Yeah but the all-formats captain definitely has more influence than merely "zero idea", and he has a bit more to do with it than tossing them the ball. We've seen how captains can negatively impact a fast bowler's development with Root and Archer but can also, by clever utilisation, can help them achieve greatness in unique ways that no one else had forseen (Clarke and Johnson). I wouldn't credit him with all of it by any means, but he's certainly a contributor.

Contributor, sure. But he's probably contributed 1% or less towards Bumrah/Shami/Yadav/Ishant's career accomplishments. By no means should anyone say that a strong pace attack is Kohli's legacy. He did not do what Javed Miandad did and pluck Wasim out of a net session and fast track him into the side.

 

[subshakerz]

Getting the best out of your entire XI is the captain's job, and Kohli was pretty good at that. He set the ~vibes~ of the team and I think he generally did a good job. But this is a very different take to "putting together a very competent test pace bowling unit".

I wouldn't even argue that he got the best out of our quicks tbh. He's definitely overbowled Bumrah and Shami at times, he messed around with how he used Yadav in Australia, and if you believe he has so much influence then he basically killed off Bhuvi's red-ball career. And this is just stuff I remember off the top of my head.

Plus our quicks will all probably still have great records in the next few years despite Kohli's absence. Time will tell, but if they're still getting good numbers and bowling sides out then that's just because they're good bowlers and not because of any Kohli magic.

Yeah, I have some issues with how he handles pacemen too. His field tactics can be lacking. And I still dont understand why Bhuvi didnt play more. But he definitely had more of a wicket hunter mentality than Dhoni who seemed at times to be waiting for wickets to come.

 

[cnerd123]

Yeah, I have some issues with how he handles pacemen too. His field tactics can be lacking. And I still dont understand why Bhuvi didnt play more. But he definitely had more of a wicket hunter mentality than Dhoni who seemed at times to be waiting for wickets to come.

Dhoni didn't have wicket-takers, so we'll never know if MSD could have done the same. Kohli definitely didn't waste the fast bowling riches at his disposal, but I'd stop short of saying he excelled with them, or that no other captain couldn't have done the same.

On a tangent - but I think captains have a much bigger influence on how a young batter or spin bowler's career turns out than they do with quick bowlers anyways. There is no mystery on how to captain quick bowlers, you just have to avoid over bowling them and occasionally light a fire under their ass. Captaining a young spinner is much trickier because pitches usually don't assist them early in the game, yet you need a lot of overs out of them to rest the quicks and get through the overs in time. We've seen many captains struggle to get their spinners into the game, and a lot of young spinners whose careers end due to being misused.

Similarly backing a young batsman while they find their feet at Test level takes courage, and there are lots of incidents of captains/coaches messing them up by constantly changing their position in the batting order or dropping them from the XI.

Can't really recall any time a captain messed up a young quick bowler outside of simply overbowling and injuring them. Managing talented young pacers isn't that impressive an achievement.

Relating this to Kohli - he really did not get the best out of players like Kuldeep, Vihari and Karun Nair. And remember when Karn Sharma played a Test in Australia? FFS.

 

[sledger]

This will be the title of sledger's memoir.

Don't assume my gender

 

[CricAddict]

Contributor, sure. But he's probably contributed 1% or less towards Bumrah/Shami/Yadav/Ishant's career accomplishments. By no means should anyone say that a strong pace attack is Kohli's legacy. He did not do what Javed Miandad did and pluck Wasim out of a net session and fast track him into the side.

It is Kohli`s legacy. You will know that clearly when our pace bowling wanes now.

 

[Xix2565]

I think we can argue about the degree to which his captaincy impacted things on the field. But your own stance is not clear as you seem to indicate he has zero to little influence on things.

Of course, assessing captaincy is not a hard science, it is subjective somewhat, which is why we all are giving our opinions and trying to back them up.


In-fighting and lack of discipline were hallmarks of the 90s team. I don't see why it is hard to believe that having many changes in captaincy in a short period will not adversely affect results, which it did. When they did have a decent captain for a longer time, Wasim, the results did relatively better, they didnt lose at home and did fairly well away.




I don't think India now are worse than before, though their batting certainly is. And it's not the case that all teams have become worse or better. It depends on the period you are comparing them with.

If you compare the teams now to lets say mid-2000s, Australia, England, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, SA certainly had better teams then. WI are around the same, NZ have got better.

If you compare the teams now to mid-90s, Australia, Pakistan, WI, SA had better teams then, England and NZ are better now, SL likely better then too.

If you compare them to mid-80s, Australia, England, Sri Lanka have better teams now, Pakistan and WI were better then, NZ around the same.

My stance is that it's not been clearly stated here what's Kohli's directly responsible for and not, to facilitate the discussion. The things being brought up are stuff that can be and have shown to be group efforts or long term plans of which Kohli was only one piece.

The batting was doing just fine from 2015 to 2018, and post that every single batting lineup has had problems when not playing on extremely helpful batting pitches. Hard to suddenly think that the Fab4 and such would do fine in this era just because they had better averages. The rest is just subjective statements not being backed up by anything so why is it being brought up like this?

 

[sledger]

The main thing he's directly responsible for is being very odious

 

[Xix2565]

The main thing he's directly responsible for is being very odious

Subjective nonsense is still subjective nonsense.

 

[sledger]

Unfortunately it's more of an objective thing these days, I mean just look at his face

 

[honestbharani]

Serious. They're 90% the bowlers they already are by the time they're under Kohli's leadership. Throughout their career they have access to actual fast bowling coaches and physios to ensure their skills improve and they stay in shape. Throughout their development there are dozens of other coaches, captains, selectors and mentors all who played a role in their growth. All Kohli had to do was toss them the ball. How could anyone argue otherwise?

MRF Pace Foundation has been there since late 1980s. NCA was around from late 90s. IPL was around from 2008. A series were a thing from mid 90s. But sure, everything just came together only when Virat was captain.

 

[cnerd123]

MRF Pace Foundation has been there since late 1980s. NCA was around from late 90s. IPL was around from 2008. A series were a thing from mid 90s. But sure, everything just came together only when Virat was captain.

Yes, basically. These structures don't produce results overnight, you usually have to wait a generation or two for the work to pay off. Irfan/Munaf/Sreesanth/RP were gen 1, and the lessons from that have led to Gen 2.

There's a kid in the U19 WC bowling 140k for India right now. If he makes it to the Indian side in 2 years under Lokesh's captaincy are we suddenly going to say that Lokesh produced him? Would be utter nonsense. We don't even know who the captain will be by the time he debuts, how can we attribute his development to him?

Golden generations happen all the time in cricket, and all team sports really. Every all-conquering team should be completely attributed to their captains going off your logic. That's just not how things work.

 

[subshakerz]

My stance is that it's not been clearly stated here what's Kohli's directly responsible for and not, to facilitate the discussion. The things being brought up are stuff that can be and have shown to be group efforts or long term plans of which Kohli was only one piece.

The batting was doing just fine from 2015 to 2018, and post that every single batting lineup has had problems when not playing on extremely helpful batting pitches. Hard to suddenly think that the Fab4 and such would do fine in this era just because they had better averages. The rest is just subjective statements not being backed up by anything so why is it being brought up like this?

Kohli as captain is responsible for five-man pace attack, promoting fitness culture, occasionally strange field settings, and the failure of the batting lineup in crunch moments. Does that make it clearer?

As for the rest, you said that teams now are being portrayed as weaker, so I responded that it is not the case for all teams. I think any cricket fan with a knowledge of cricket history could agree that mid-2000s Australia were stronger and mid-80s Australia were weaker than the current version, for example.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Serious. They're 90% the bowlers they already are by the time they're under Kohli's leadership. Throughout their career they have access to actual fast bowling coaches and physios to ensure their skills improve and they stay in shape. Throughout their development there are dozens of other coaches, captains, selectors and mentors all who played a role in their growth. All Kohli had to do was toss them the ball. How could anyone argue otherwise?

Captains usually are disproportionately blamed when things go wrong, likewise often overly praised when things go right. It matters for sure, but not that much.

 

[Arachnodouche]

Let the ****er rest in peace ffs His contributions probably lie between either extremes being expressed here. A dominant personality in charge is bound to color the temperament of those around him, for better or worse. I know people will point at the last tour of Aus and say his absence was a blessing...whatever. I expect a relative drop in intensity now that he's not captain...how that affects the team's fortunes remains to be seen.