'Sourav Ganguly Built A Team, Backed Them Through Highs And Lows, Not Sure Virat Kohli Did That': Virender Sehwag
Published - 19 May 2022, 06:38 PM | Updated - 23 Aug 2024, 12:07 AM
Virender Sehwag had taken a dig at former India captain Virat Kohli while comparing the leadership eras of him and Sourav Ganguly. Both Ganguly and Kohli are considered to be one of the best captains India has ever had along with the likes of MS Dhoni, Kapil Dev, and Mohammed Azharuddin.
Virender Sehwag was lucky enough to play under the captaincy of Sourav Ganguly and his career flourished under the Bengal leader as he was promoted to open the innings in ODIs and Tests and he took off as an attacking batter. Ganguly is also credited with encouraging players like Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, and MS Dhoni, who all began their careers under him, except Harbhajan.
Sehwag called Kohli a better captain statistically but said that he never made and created careers of players like Sourav Ganguly did during his tenure from 2000-2005.
Sourav Ganguly Built A New Team, Backed New Players: Virender Sehwag
Ganguly, who led India in 49 Tests in his close to five years at the helm, is currently the president of BCCI. He had a win percentage of 42.85 with 21 wins, 15 draws, and 13 defeats. Kohli, on the other hand, has a much better record when it comes to pure numbers.
Kohli is in fact, India’s most successful Test captain and also led the country in the most number of red-ball games, with a win percentage of 58.82 in the 68 Tests that he led India between 2016 and January 2022. But like Sehwag pointed out, Ganguly was known as a youngster’s captain.
“Sourav Ganguly built a new team, brought in new players and backed them through their highs and lows. I doubt if Kohli did that in his tenure. In my opinion, the #1 captain is the one who builds a team and gives confidence to his players. He (Kohli) backed some players, some he did not,” says Sehwag on the latest episode of Sports18’s show Home of Heroes.
India had its best-ever pace attack in Kohli’s leadership with the likes of Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma, and Umesh Yadav dominating world cricket.
