Kolkata: The entire cricketing world has been talking highly about his leadership skills, but the man himself thinks it’s not the right time to have the final word on his captaincy. Kohli according to PTI, also harps on the fact that his batting has improved after taking over the reins of captaincy, since “Captaincy does not leave any room for complacency.”
Addressing the media today on the eve of the first Test against Australia in Pune that starts tomorrow, Kohli added, “I don’t judge myself after every series. Priority and the only goal that we have is to win games of cricket. Captaincy will be as good as how your team performs and how consistent the players are. If we are not playing to our potential as players, there’s not much I can do as captain.”
And the Indian captain also categorically says that a captain is as good as his team, an adage used by many of his predecessors. “The more the team becomes mature, the captain starts looking good. If the team doesn’t do well, the captaincy bit seems out of control,” Kohli said. “Maybe five to eight years down the line I will be able to judge myself as a captain if I remain captain for that long. I feel personally it’s too early for me to sit down and judge what I have done well or haven’t,” the skipper under whom India is enjoying an unbeaten run of 19 Tests, said.
Elaborating further on captaincy, Kohli said, “Captaincy does not allow you to be complacent at any stage especially with the bat if that is your only discipline in the game, in the field as well. In that aspect I think complacency goes out the window as captain.” And he added, “You tend to focus a lot more on certain situations which you might or might not without the extra responsibility on your shoulders and may play a loose shot.”
And he also brought his Australian counterpart Steve Smith into the subject. “Captaincy requires you to be on point throughout the game that’s one thing which has worked well for me and I think Steve Smith as well. He has been performing consistently with the bat and as captain as well. It’s the same scenario there as well. Captain’s responsibility has urged him to focus a bit more in certain situations and push that much extra for his team and that has shown in his performances,” he said.
On Smith he added, “He is the No. 1 Test player in the world and there’s a reason for that. I can’t pinpoint any similarities in our career. I have seen him in the academy and he was never a dominant batsman and it’s a remarkable achievement for someone starting his career as a leg-spinner.”
Kohli also feels he is a much more confident person than before. “I am pretty confident of where my game stands and pretty comfortable with myself as a person now. People writing articles or speaking about certain things, that’s their job. I have no control over it, they have to write or criticise or not criticise, that’s not in my control. I focus on my game and that’s the priority for me,” he said in Pune.
(With inputs from PTI)