Do Virat Kohli's Captaincy Skills Call For A DRS?

No doubt Virat Kohli is the best batsman to have emerged from India in recent years. He is a lion among kittens, Atlas shouldering the weight of India's batting. But, as a captain overseas, he has a long way to go.

- Vimal Kumar

“Virat Kohli has been involved in five run-outs in Test cricket but has been dismissed only once. He is not a man who gives up his wicket for the sake of a teammate. In the end it turned out that Kohli’s decision brought India only another handful of runs. But it all added to this impression that Kohli is a captain who seems to think that, if a thing has to be done, he had best do it himself. Which seems to mean that, if he does not, it does not get done at all. Brilliant as he is, it feels as if India have invested too much power, and too much hope, in just one man.”

This scathing assessment by England’s The Guardian newspaper during the Lord’s Test perhaps eloquently sums up the captaincy of Virat Kohli. This was written after Cheteshwar Pujara had to sacrifice his wicket for his captain.

After 40 Test matches as captain, Kohli has just two Test wins to show in SENA (South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia) countries and one of the wins came after the series was already decided (in South Africa). Eventually, fans and critics will get tired of verbal bravado by the captain. And it was shocking to hear Kohli say, “That’s your opinion, thank you!” after the England series concluded, when he was confronted with a straight question as to whether he too believed that this was the best Test side in the last 15 years. The reaction came on the heels of coach Ravi Shastri’s remarks. The Indian coach said that the present Indian team were better on foreign soil than the sides under Mahendra Singh Dhoni and even Sourav Ganguly. All this, after a crushing 4–1 loss at the hands of England.