Virat Kohli Should Just Embrace It And Relax About The Whole Situation: Brad Hogg On India's ODI Captaincy Change

Former Australian spinner Brad Hogg advised Virat Kohli to focus on leading the Test team and should relax with the current scenario.

On Wednesday, the BCCI announced an 18-member Test squad for the South Africa tour. Apart from announcing the Test squad, the BCCI also mentioned that Rohit Sharma will completely take over the leadership of white-ball cricket as he was named the ODI skipper as well.

Rohit Sharma replaces Virat Kohli as India’s ODI skipper

Kohli stepped down from India’s T20I captaincy role just after the completion of the T20 World Cup. Kohli’s decision was to reduce his workload management and he also did the same in IPL with RCB.

This is going to be better for Virat Kohli: Brad Hogg

Hogg believes that it is a blessing in disguise for Kohli to concentrate and improve his batting performance and let Rohit take care of the matters related to white-ball cricket.

“I think this is a good move. Kohli should just embrace it and relax about the whole situation and should concentrate on captaining the Test team. So basically you’ve got Rohit Sharma just concentrating on the team he wants in white-ball cricket and Virat Kohli focusing on Test cricket.

“It takes a lot of pressure off you. The media hype off the field all of a sudden relaxes and Virat Kohli’s only got to worry about the Test environment,” Hogg said on his YouTube channel.

“Whereas Rohit Sharma has only got to worry about the white-ball environment plus all the sponsorship and other commitments off the field. I think this is going to be better for Virat Kohli. It is going to improve his performances which have slightly dropped off slightly in the last couple of years when he’s been under pressure while captaining all three teams.

“I think it’s a blessing in disguise. I just hope when they go on their next tour, that change room is not separated by this little slight division between these two particular players. Both of them have to embrace it, get in that changing room, and take Indian cricket forward. That’s because Indian cricket right now, with the talent they’ve got in batting and bowling should dominate world cricket over the next five years at least,” he added.

Kohli led India in 95 ODI matches and 65 of them turned out to be on a winning note. Under his captaincy, India went to the final of ICC Champions Trophy and semis of the 2019 World Cup.

Rohit has won the Asia Cup in 2018 and the Nidahas Trophy in the same year and has also led the team in various bilateral series in Kohli’s absence.

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