Can See Parallels Of Ricky Ponting In Kohli's Leadership: Mike Hussey

Team India is yet to lose a single Test series under Virat Kohli. The 28-year old, who was appointed the skipper during the 2014-15 tour of Australia, led the team in a full series for the first team in 2015 in Sri Lanka and made an immediate impact by guiding the team to a 2-1 series win. The series win was India’s first in the island nation after 22 long years.

Since then, the Kohli-led side has defeated South Africa 3-0 in 2015 before the mammoth 2016-17 season where they defeated West Indies (2-0), New Zealand (3-0), England (4-0), Bangladesh (1-0) and Australia (2-1). The winning streak continued in the ongoing series against Sri Lanka too as the world number one Test team wrapped up the three-match series by winning the second Test last week.

Earlier this year, he was handed the limited-overs captaincy too and he once again impressed by guiding the team to ODI and T20I series wins over England before leading the team to the final of the Champions Trophy. Impressed with his captaincy, former Australia batsman Mike Hussey has said that Kohli has got a great will to win before stating that he could see ‘parallels of Ricky Ponting in Kohli’s leadership’.

“I have always enjoyed Kohli’s captaincy. He is doing a great job. He has got this great will to win. I can see parallels of Ricky Ponting in Kohli’s leadership. Since Ponting was always hungry for success, he would keep pushing his team. He set very high standards in training and was very competitive. MS Dhoni was a wonderful captain and it was always going to be a challenge for Virat to fill Dhoni’s big shoes. But the good thing about Virat is he didn’t want to follow Dhoni’s methods. He has been his own man and led the side in his own way. He has been true to his own personality,” Hussey said.

“I believe that a captain is as good as his team. And Virat has got some excellent players in his side. India have been through the period of transition where the legends like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman retired and the younger lot came in. But now, the team is a settled unit and is hungry for success. These are exciting times for Indian cricket. Obviously, there will be challenges along the way and not only the captain but the players will also be tested,” he added.